Grandfather Clocks
by FiveRivers
Summary: A collection of related one-shots regarding the father/son relationship between Danny and Clockwork (Lost Time). 90% fluff. Some angst may show up now and again. Features fatherly, protective Clockwork, and soft, fuzzy Danny. Set before Mortified. Rated T for safety. Now featuring: Play On.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello there readers, thanks for checking this out!**

 **This is (or will be) a collection of related one-shots that focuses on the relationship between Danny and Clockwork. No slash. No romance. I don't feel super comfortable writing either. Honestly, I'm not sure I wrote this very well, but I'm trash for Danny and Clockwork interactions and, apparently, I have no shame.**

 **It is my intention to have these set in the same universe as Mortified, with the same headcanons applied, but you shouldn't have to read Mortified to understand these, or vice versa.**

 **Updates to this will be extremely sporadic.**

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One: Watching

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All sentient ghosts have at least one obsession. An obsession is what allows a ghost to exist. It is their reason for existing. Their purpose.

Most sapient ghosts have more than one obsession. In general, the more complex the obsession or obsessions, the more complex and intelligent the ghost. Even the Box Ghost has more than one obsession. As much as he loves his boxes, he also craves respect.

Clockwork was not unusual in this regard.

He had his primary obsession, his first obsession, that he had had ever since forming from the primordial ectoplasmic mist: keeping the time lines safe and intact. But over the course of his existence he had also become obsessed with creating the best time lines, with creating happiness, and, once he had spent a few thousand years observing sentient, sapient creatures, preserving freedom of choice. These secondary obsessions had grown in importance with Clockwork's understanding of the world around him until they were equal to his first obsession. It made him regret that foolish oath he had made to the Observants in his youth all the more.

No matter.

There was one obsession, though, that Clockwork had kept secret since he had first become aware of it. If the Observants had even the slightest hint that it existed, they would take steps to ensure that he could never, ever fulfill it. Not that Clockwork had ever intended to do so. He, more than anyone else, knew the risks involved, and he would not endanger the time lines for something so selfish.

It was nice, after spending hours, or even days, wrestling with a recalcitrant time line, or patching difficult holes in space and time, to have a fantasy to fall back on. But it was just that. A fantasy.

Even so, when the chance to satisfy this obsession came up out of nowhere, as the natural result of following the Observants' orders, no less, and with the potential to create an entirely new set of positive time lines, Clockwork caved to temptation.

It was because of this, this dangerous secondary obsession, that Clockwork was hovering in the middle of Daniel's room. Watching him sleep. Watching him breathe.

Now, neither of these things were unusual in and of themselves. All humans and many ghosts needed some form of sleep. Daniel required five hours of sleep to be fully functional, and appreciated it when he got more. What was unusual about Daniel's continued slumber was that his ghost sense had gone off some time ago, when Clockwork had first arrived, and he had barely stirred. It was touching, really. Usually, Daniel would be up in seconds, ready to fight off whatever ghost had woken him. That he hadn't meant that on some level, Daniel recognized Clockwork's ectosignature, and didn't consider it a threat.

As for breathing, well, Daniel breathed all the time, even in his ghost form, when, strictly speaking, he didn't have to. It was an unconscious reflex for him, although he did tend to breathe more slowly, and more rarely, than a normal human being. What made Daniel's breathing noteworthy at this precise moment, was that Clockwork had stopped time.

Clockwork had stopped time and Daniel was most definitely _not_ wearing one of Clockwork's time medallions.

The corners of Clockwork's mouth turned upwards slightly as, very, very slowly Daniel's chest rose and fell. No, Daniel was not moving at his normal speed, but the fact was that he shouldn't be moving at all.

Clockwork drifted closer, and with one cold, blue hand reached out to touch the side of Daniel's face. Daniel, again very, very slowly, leaned into the touch, still not waking up. Clockwork's smile became more pronounced, sharp white teeth glinting between his lips.

"All is as it should be."


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello. This seemed to be liked, so I'm putting up another one. This'll be either two or three parts, about Danny and Clockwork's first meetings, between the Ultimate Enemy and Masters of All Time. I always thought that it was strange that Danny went right to Clockwork with the ecto-acne problem. I mean, time travel to solve the issue is good out of the box thinking, but it didn't feel like Danny and Clockwork were at a point in their relationship where Danny could ask him for help like that and expect to be helped at the end of TUE. Danny barely knew Clockwork. So this is what I think might have happened in-between.**

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Meetings Part 1

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The first time Danny met Clockwork, he was terrified. Clockwork was far, far more powerful than any ghost Danny had ever faced before, with the possible exception of Pariah Dark, and Clockwork had sent not one, but two powerful ghosts from the future after him. Three, if you counted SkulkTech as two ghosts.

They had called Danny evil. More than that, they had believed that he was evil. The ghosts Danny fought often hated him, but they had never called him _evil_. Ironically, only the humans he protected ever went that far.

Then, the images on those screens... He had gone into hardcore denial mode at once.

He desperately wished that Sam and Tucker hadn't come with him. This was way too dangerous for them to be involved.

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The second time Danny met Clockwork, it was a relief. Seeing the older ghost there, his friends, his family, and teacher, alive, seeing them safe, sparked within him a gratitude so deep, so intense, it was painful. Clockwork could have told Danny anything in that moment, and he would have believed it. Could have asked him to do almost anything, and he would have done it.

If Clockwork had said he was still going to become... _that..._ Danny would have killed himself, then and there. If Clockwork had told him that in return for the lives of his family and friends, Danny would have to serve him, forever, Danny would have done just that.

But Clockwork didn't. Instead, the Master of Time had given him a few words of encouragement, and helped him _again,_ dropping him off before the CAT test even began.

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The third time Danny met Clockwork, it was on purpose. He owed Clockwork. He owed Clockwork massively, owed him a debt that was so impossibly heavy that he knew that he would never, ever be able to repay it, and he hardly knew anything about the older ghost. Not to mention, the last time he had spoken to Clockwork, he had been in so much shock that he hadn't even been able to properly express his gratitude.

So he sought out Clockwork's tower. It was surprisingly easy to find. It was almost like something inside him was leading him towards the tower. Danny uncomfortably rubbed his chest, remembering when _he_ had painfully phased the time medallion into his chest, between his heart and his core. He shivered, but shook his head and continued on.

The doors of the clock tower swung open as Danny touched down in front of them. Clockwork must be expecting him... Which was only to be expected. Clockwork knew everything, after all.

Danny walked in, hesitantly, cautiously. The last time he had been here, he had been attacked, after all. "Hello?" he said, just loud enough to be heard over the ticking of the tower. "Hello?" he repeated a little louder. "Clockwork?"

"Hello, Daniel."

Danny jumped at the voice, jerking his head upwards to track it. Clockwork was there, about two stories up, doing something to one of the gears. He smiled down at Danny, and began drifting down.

"What brings you to Long Now?"

"I- um-" said Danny, still startled, and now a little sheepish. "Long Now?"

"That is the name of this place. My lair. Long Now."

"O-oh," said Danny. He rubbed the back of his neck. "I wanted to- I wanted to say thank you. For helping me before, and for saving Sam and Jazz and Tucker, and my parents, and Mr Lancer. And for giving me a second chance, even though I kept screwing up. And- and I wanted to say if there's ever anything I can do for you- I mean, I know that there probably isn't anything- but if there is- if there is I want to help you. S-so-"

"Daniel."

Danny looked up. He wondered when his eyes had dropped to the floor.

"I will certainly keep your offer in mind." The time ghost's smile widened slightly, and he held out a hand. "Here, take a cookie."

As he flew home, Danny reflected that it was one of the best cookies he had ever tasted.

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The fourth time Danny met Clockwork, it was a surprise. He had been doing homework in the library at school, when suddenly he felt a weight around his neck, and all sound stopped. He looked up, trying to figure out what was wrong, only to see the Clockwork floating on the other side of the table.

His hand inched up to touch the time medallion around his neck. "Um," said Danny. "What's up?"

"Well," said Clockwork, his face serious, "it evolves that your help is needed."

Danny put his homework to the side. Clockwork had his full attention. "Okay," he said, "what can I do?"

Clockwork smiled just a little, and... well, he didn't stand. He hadn't really been sitting to begin with, either. He floated backwards and waved his hand, brassy blue ectoplasm swirling into a portal. He gestured at it, clearly intending for Danny to go first.

Danny called up his rings and shifted into his ghost form. He opted to float around the table rather than through it, and took a deep breath before he went through the portal.

It came out in Clockwork's tower... Long Now. Danny wasn't quite sure what he expected, to be honest. He looked around. This was the part of the tower with all the viewing screens and portals. Most of them were off, swirls of green and static, but one, the one he had come out directly opposite from, was on. He drifted closer to it, trying to make out what was happening.

There was a figure on the screen. It looked like Technus. It looked a _lot_ like Technus, but he hadn't the cloud of floating technological detritus that always accompanied the technology-obsessed ghost. Then there was the location. It looked like Technus was in the middle of a forest, a dense forest, which was weird. Technus didn't even like going into the park. He wasn't really doing anything, either. He was just... Flying.

"The issue," said Clockwork, startling Danny yet again, "is that our friend, Technus, has fallen through a natural portal into pre-Columbian North America."

"Pre-Columbian...?" The term wasn't entirely alien to Danny, so he supposed that if he was a better student, with more time to study, he would know what it meant.

"Before the year 1492. Before Cristopher Columbus reached the Americas."

"Okay. So..."

"So, not only has he been unable to satisfy his technological obsession, his other obsessions have been driving him to torment the locals. He needs to be brought back to this time."

Danny frowned. That was serious, both for Technus and the time line. Apart from whatever Technus was doing, he didn't wish the fate of an unquenchable obsession on anyone. But there was something bothering him. "Not that I don't want to help, but why not just open another portal in front of him?"

"Ah, the root of the matter. I am, unfortunately, bound by certain rules. Rules that I agreed to. You are familiar with the Observant Council."

It wasn't a question, but Danny felt the need to nod regardless. He'd only the one encounter with them, a random run-in while exploring the Zone, but it wasn't one he was keen on repeating. Ever.

"I cannot, therefore, interfere directly. On the other hand, I can tell you that another portal leading to this time will be opening soon, and where."

"Okay," said Danny. "I _will_ be able to get back, though, right?" he asked, suddenly nervous.

"Yes," said Clockwork.


	3. Chapter 3

**Oops! I slipped and made another one of these.**

 **Anyway, I'm glad that this has had such a positive response. Thank you for your reviews.**

 **This is a companion to the previous chapter, and won't make sense unless you read that one.**

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Meetings part 2

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It would be hard to pinpoint the 'first' time Clockwork had encountered Daniel. This was a common problem for people who did not exist in a single, straight, temporal line. It became even more difficult when taking into account the way that the Observants continually interfered with Clockwork's powers.

However, if Clockwork was forced to pick a time, he would say that he first met Daniel when the later was only hours old.

It was a ritual of Clockwork's. Whenever a person whose decisions would drastically change the flow of history was born, Clockwork would visit him, or her, as the case might be. He had done this for Alexander the Great, for Cleopatra, for Cincinnatus, for George Washington, for Hitler.

He did it for Daniel Janus James Fenton.

He came in the guise of a doctor. He wore a white coat, his eyes were red-brown, his skin was pale, marred only by the scar forced on him by the Observants. In short, he did not look at all like a ghost.

The child was sleeping in his crib. Tiny. Delicate. Full of potential. Clockwork laid a gentle hand on his cheek, and let the possible futures spool into his mind. He briefly touched the more vibrant ones, frowning when he found that several were obscured, the Observants in those time-lines blocking his powers.

His smile returned, however, when he touched on others. Here was the boy as a scientist. As an astronaut. As a soldier. Standing in congress, giving a speech. Here he was with his wife, and children. With his wife and their dog. Here he was at a book signing. Here he was, playing chess with his adoptive father. Watching a movie with his girlfriend. With his boyfriend. With his sister. With his sisters.

There were other, darker, futures. So often, the child died young.

Clockwork plucked one dark gem from the flood. He saw Daniel, no older than ten, perched on a throne far too large for him, his hair white, his eyes a luminous blue, an icy crown tangled in his hair. To his left stood another ghost, a dark-skinned young man wearing an ornamented headdress and Egyptian linens. To his right stood a human woman with black hair and violet eyes. An army of ghosts knelt before them.

So often, almost always, he stepped across the dividing line, into the Infinite Realms, no matter his age.

Only a few futures were tarnished with what Clockwork would call evil, and those, only lightly. Clockwork never liked looking at these blackened futures, even less so for someone who could be so glorious.

In this one, Daniel was vengeance, doling out retribution for his parents' deaths. In another, he was a conqueror, gathering all the Realms together. In a third, he was human, but ruthless, a businessman like his godfather. The number of these was infinite, but smaller than that of the bright ones. Not all infinities were equal.

Clockwork removed his hand. It was now up to Daniel to choose his future.

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The next time Clockwork crossed paths with Daniel was very different. Clockwork had a radically different goal. He had been watching Daniel for some time, he had one of the more interesting time-lines of Clockwork's experience, and he was a charming child, and a good person, but it was his future that Clockwork was now focused on. A future that Clockwork might be able to share.

How ironic, that the Observants had shown him the path to that happy future, while they asked him to kill Daniel. It was a one-in-a-trillion future, impossible to reach without paradoxes. Fitting, for the Master of Time. Of course, once he had set foot on the path to that future, it splintered and diverged into a thousand more. Such was time.

Having a different goal, Clockwork had to take a different approach.

Hence his current preoccupation with his appearance.

He had to choose it carefully. He couldn't go with one of his typical guises. Clearly, he couldn't use a human appearance. He couldn't opt for anything he used in the presence of the Observants. He didn't want to terrify the child. He didn't exactly have a 'true' form.

Here was the problem: he had to be threatening enough, sinister enough, that Daniel wouldn't hesitate to fight him, but approachable enough that Daniel wouldn't refuse to seek him out later. He had to be frightening, and alien, but also familiar, paternal, reliable. Someone Daniel could turn to for help, someone Daniel could trust.

Much of this would be communicated through his actions, Clockwork knew, but the way he presented himself could make a radical difference.

He had spent the last eternity (literally, he had stopped time) cycling through options. He had already discarded anything monstrous, anything too far from human. All his current options had a face with two eyes, a mouth, a nose, ears, two arms, hands with five fingers... Human features, human proportions. He had become partial to placing a slight gap between his two front teeth sometime in the last several hundred iterations. Other features, too, were constant, the scar across his eye, the timepiece embedded in his chest, the staff in his hand.

As he continued, he continued to weed out options, make decisions. He settled on a color scheme, eerie, solid-color ruby eyes, white hair, blue skin, purple robes. He settled on a set of features. He liked having a slight downward curve to his nose, heavy eyebrows, a tilt to his eyes. What he couldn't settle on, however, was an age.

He frowned at his reflection, as he increased and decreased his apparent age. Too young, and Daniel either wouldn't respect him, or would think of him as a friend, or brother, instead of a mentor, or parent, not to mention he might not fight him, if he appeared to be a child. He didn't want to set off Daniel's protective instincts. Too old, and he faced a similar problem. Daniel was still partially human, after all, he would associate apparent old age with fragility. Then, as an adult, in the prime of his life, he looked sly, and crafty, which, despite being true (he was doing _this,_ after all) was not the impression he wanted to give.

So Clockwork scrolled through his ages, growing young, then old, then young again. Then it struck him. This. This was _perfect._ He was the Master of Time. It should leave its mark on him in more than just symbols of timekeeping. He could do this, changing ages, until he could determine which one Daniel liked the most. As a bonus, it would confuse the Observants. In fact, he liked this so much that he reached backwards, tapping his former self on the shoulder, something he did rarely, because of how much energy it took, and showed himself the new form. He felt history change around him, and smiled. He was ready now.

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Clockwork was thrilled when Daniel first sought him out. He had to remind himself to move slowly, to be gentle, calm. He didn't want to frighten the child by being too enthusiastic. He needed Daniel to get used to him, to become comfortable, and that would take time. He had to be patient, as he had been for so long.

But Daniel was such a good child, such a good person, coming to thank him like this, even though he was still obviously somewhat nervous around him. Clockwork didn't blame him. Their earlier meetings hadn't all been amicable. But Clockwork had a plan to put him at ease, and that plan started with smiles and cookies.

He watched Daniel leave, smiling. Everything was going so well.

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Clockwork knew that he wold have to make the next move. Daniel wouldn't want to bother him for help, and he would be too shy to visit him uninvited. So Clockwork waited for an appropriate excuse to arise, something to happen so that Clockwork could ask for Daniel's aid.

True, Clockwork could resolve the incident on his own, but this solution would be better for everyone involved, including himself. Sending Daniel would, at the very least, keep the Observants out of it. They did not, could not, keep track of Daniel the way they did Clockwork. Daniel and Technus were known to one another. Potentially, this could soften their relationship as well (it was a long shot, though. Technus and Daniel had been rivals for some time). Clockwork wouldn't have to appear before Technus, and frighten him.

Then, once the fighting was done, there would be a treat for Daniel. Something Clockwork knew Daniel would appreciate.

So, despite his serious facade, Clockwork's heart was light, as he saw Daniel off, because he knew that everything was the way it was supposed to be.

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 **So, yes, I do intend to do one more in this sequence.**

 **Clockwork _is_ supposed to be a little eerie in this. This is an obsession that he's been denying for a very long time, after all! I hope you don't mind.**

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 **I've had this idea in my mind, that I might do later in this collection, but it's a little weird, so I thought that I'd run it by you guys like this. Basically, the concept is that, for some reason, Danny gets hit by the shrink-ray from Micro Management, and Clockwork comes across tiny!Danny, which triggers all his parental instincts, so he picks Danny up, puts him inside the clock in his chest and just carries him around. Should I write this story?**


	4. Chapter 4

**For some reason, I've just felt inspired for this fic this weekend, so here's the last part of Meetings.**

 **Sumi-Sprite: I'm really happy that you like this so much, but be safe! You can't read if you're dead!**

 **I am going to write about tiny!Danny. Not sure _when_ that's going to happen, but it's going to happen. Eventually.**

 **Also, if any of you guys sees a concept or story in here, or in my other one-shot collection that you want to run with, take it, just give me a heads up! Thank you so much for reading this.**

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Meetings part 3

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It hadn't taken long for Danny to defeat Technus. The technological ghost hadn't been himself. Agitated. Hyperactive and slow at the same time. Beside himself. Upset. Hysterical, at times. Usually, Technus was a challenge. He always had a least an outline of a plan, but now, he was relying on brute strength, and, although he wasn't a font of wit even at the best of times, here, he was reduced to guttural growls without any linguistic value whatsoever. It was a bit of a surprise, actually.

Technus almost seemed relieved, when Danny sucked him into the thermos. That made sense. It was probably the only piece of advanced technology in the world. Danny held the thermos close. The thought of being cut off from part of his obsession like that... It was terrifying. Being trapped here, away from Amity, his family, his friends, and even the Ghost Zone, it might drive him insane. Even now, he felt a little off-balance, unable to point himself to home, or even to feel where he had died. (Tucker called it his ghost homing instinct. Danny wished that he could come up with a better name for it.)

(Danny might have just been the tiniest bit worried that he'd be stuck here. Not that he would blame Clockwork, if that happened. If it did, then he knew that it was supposed to happen. That it needed to happen.)

Danny breathed out, and floated up above the trees. It was a little strange breathing here, with the air so clear and sharp, and it was fascinating, seeing the forest stretch from horizon to horizon, a few trails of smoke being the only sign of human habitation. He flicked himself to invisibility, deciding to explore while he waited for another portal to open.

The trees and plants were a bit different than what he was used to, but whether that was because he was over half a millennium in the past, or because he was several hundred miles from where his home would some day be, he couldn't say. He gathered a few of the more interesting-looking flowers for Sam. He would, of course, ask Clockwork if it was safe to bring them home. He had listened to enough of Sam's lectures about invasive species, and Tucker's speculations on time travel and disease, to know that doing otherwise would be silly.

He came across a stream, a small river, really, and played with it for about half an hour. It was fun to dive in and out of the water intangibly, examining polished and sparkling rocks, river plants, and tiny, fingernail-length fish.

Danny wished he had a camera with him. Sam would go wild for this. Tucker, not so much, but, hey, he'd be interested in the time travel part. Oh, and Jazz would probably be interested, too.

After a while, he drifted up above the trees again. The sun was just beginning to set, dying the clouds red, orange, and pink. He watched it slowly sink down below the horizon.

The planets began to come out. Mercury, just above the horizon, then Venus. A few minutes later, the wind picked up, and swept the clouds off, to the east, leaving the sky a clear and deepening navy blue. Danny reoriented himself so that he was floating on his back, and watched, carefully, quietly. He wasn't going to miss a chance to see the night sky without light pollution or smog.

The stars began to come out, then. Sirius, then Arcturus, then all the others. Danny's ghostly vision could pick up more in the dark, so he had become used to seeing more stars than was usually possible for humans. Still, he was surprised by how quickly the sky filled with all the familiar stars, and then overflowed. The Milky Way was painted across the sky in all it's glory, and Danny finally understood how it had gotten it's name. Like this, it really did look like someone had spilled milk on the sky. It was scintillating, and brilliant, the stars that made it up every color but green.

The moon came up as Danny watched, waning and gibbous, so bright that it cast shadows from the trees, and hurt Danny's eyes.

The temperature dropped as time went on, but Danny didn't mind. When he was in ghost form, the cold didn't bother him. He just watched the stars, tracing constellations, watching them progress up over the eastern horizon before setting in the west.

Around midnight, something changed. Danny felt a slight tug on his core, and his 'homing instinct' (gosh, he really needed to find a better name for that) kicked in, leading him to the southwest. That had to be a portal. He shot one last, slightly regretful, look at the sky, and sped towards the portal. He didn't know how long it would be open for, after all, and, despite the beautiful skies, he had no intention of being stranded here.

Thankfully, he came out of the portal in an area of the Ghost Zone that was familiar to him. That had been a concern, too, if less of one. Now, he adjusted his trajectory, Clockwork's tower, Long Now, he corrected himself, should be this way.

As he landed on Clockwork's doorstep, he tried to catalog his emotions. He was oddly excited. Expectant, almost. His heartbeat was faster than in usually was when he was in ghost form, and his core was almost vibrating. He bounced on one foot, trying to calm himself. There was no reason to feel this way. He had just done what Clockwork had asked him to do. That's all. This didn't even put a dent in how much he still owed Clockwork.

At last, having worked himself into a state of nervous confusion, Danny went in. Clockwork was waiting there, in front of one of his viewing screens. The scene wasn't familiar to Danny, ghosts, at some sort of celebration. He turned, to smile, gently at Danny. Danny, automatically, smiled back. He stepped forward.

(His core was doing something very strange right now.)

"Hello, Daniel," said Clockwork, shifting from child form to adult form. "I'm glad to see that you've found your way safely back."

"Me too," said Danny. "I have Technus here," he said, offering up the thermos. "I wasn't sure if I should just let him go, or bring him here, or what, so... Um..."

"You've done well," said Clockwork, still smiling, floating to Danny. He put a light hand on Danny's shoulder. Danny, unconsciously, leaned into the touch. He had been tiring, after the fight and the long day, but now he felt energized. "I will make sure that Technus is released in the vicinity of his lair," Clockwork continued, taking the thermos.

"Thank you," said Danny.

"Would you like a cookie?" asked Clockwork.

"Um, sure."


	5. Chapter 5

**So here's tiny!Danny! I hope you like it! I'm not sure that I'm entirely done with this concept (that is, tiny!Danny, not this story), but I think this is good for now? Tell me what you think! Constructive criticism is always appreciated.**

 **silverheartlugia2000: I'm glad the reasons for Danny's feelings in that last chapter came across! I don't know if Baby Danny from the shorts will be making a reappearance. I think that I have enough stories going right now to occupy me for a while. To answer your question from chapter one, I was trying to imply that Danny had picked up some of Clockworks powers.**

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Tiny

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Danny hated the Fenton Crammer. He hated it not just because of what it did to him, but because it didn't make sense. He supposed that was rather hypocritical of him, considering that he was alive and dead at the same time, and routinely violated all widely accepted laws of physics, but, taking ghost physics into account, Danny wasn't impossible or incomprehensible. He was just weird, like those people you see on medical tv shows.

The Fenton Crammer, on the other hand... Well...

Danny could see it working on ghosts; shrinking them, that is. Over time, he had done a lot of weird stuff to his ghostly body himself. The tail, splitting himself in half, duplication, the list went on. He knew ghosts who could radically change their shape, their size, or both. He could understand, then, something that either compressed a ghost, forcing their ectoplasm closer together, which the name of the thing seemed to suggest, or something that somehow stripped away ectoplasm, forcing the ghost to take on a more manageable size.

In fact, based on the weapon's other effect, nullifying ghost powers, Danny would have suspected the later. He could definitely see his dad starting with the first concept, hence the name, realizing that something like that wouldn't actually make a ghost less dangerous, because they'd have the same amount of ectoplasm, and, therefore, the same amount of ectoenergy, and then changing his approach. If this had been the case, Danny wouldn't have been too upset about being shrunk. It didn't do anything to his mind, after all, nor, as far as he could tell, his core (cores being harder to affect than other ghostly objects for a number of reasons), and ectoplasm was psychoactive. Eventually, he would be able to absorb enough ectoplasm and ectoenergy to return to his normal size.

The thing was, it didn't just work on ghosts. Dash had been shrunk, too, and tests that Danny had run later had shown that it could shrink _anything._ That did not make sense. If the 'compression' hypothesis was correct, then, among other things, Dash wouldn't have been able to breathe. The alveoli in his lungs would have been the wrong size, compared to the molecules in the air. If the 'stripping' hypothesis was correct, well, it either shouldn't have worked on Dash at all, he hadn't nearly enough ectoplasm in his system, or, if the Crammer simply stripped _any_ material it came across, it should have vaporized him. Then there was Skulker, and his armor. Skulker's armor was made partially of ectoplasm, and it ran on ectoenergy. It should have lost power, too.

The way it affected Danny, continuing to drain him even long after he had been hit, slowly forcing him out of ghost form, was also counter-intuitive, especially considering that it didn't seem to affect Skulker in the same way. Logically, Danny should regain power over time. Unless, that is, his ghost form was spending energy keeping his human half alive despite his human half being compressed... But, considering that Dash had been fine, that didn't make sense.

Really, the only way that the Crammer could work was if it did totally different things to ghosts, humans, and half-ghosts, and something else yet again to inanimate objects. At the same time. With the same beam.

Then there was the fact that it could reverse what it did. Whatever it was that it did.

Of course, none of these thoughts were helping Danny get to the Fenton Crammer and return himself to his normal size. Or even find it. It appeared that, for once, Jack Fenton had put a weapon he was tinkering with away. Either that, or Maddie had. Or, and Danny was avoiding thinking this, he had taken it with him, into the lab.

Danny looked up, at the kitchen counter. He couldn't see what was on it, of course, but it was his last shot. Jazz had a rule about ectoweaponry and other inventions in the kitchen, so Danny hadn't thought to look here at first, but she was away on a college tour, and he had already checked the living room, the dining room, and the entryway, and, at this point, Danny was too tired to try the stairs.

It was really monstrously unfair. After being shrunk with Dash, Danny had gotten his human form into very good shape, and he had kept it there. He could even fight some of the weaker ghosts hand to hand without transforming. But he had spent the last few hours first getting back home, getting through the alley, past the fence, across the yard, up the steps and under the door, then climbing tables, and other furniture while searching for the Crammer, and staying out of sight, because he really didn't want to have to answer questions about how he had been shrunk. Before that, he had been fighting for much of the morning, and he had some fairly serious injuries that weren't healing at their normal, accelerated, rate.

Danny was exhausted, and the constant drain the Crammer somehow caused was only making it worse every second he spent glaring up at the counter. He sniffed, blinking tears out of his eyes. Feeling sorry for himself wasn't helping. This would be difficult, but it shouldn't be quite as much of a hassle as the coffee table. He could use one of the appliance power cords as a rope, and avoid the overhang of the counter's lip.

He had just started moving to put his tentative plan into action, when a shiver went down his spine, and a curl of mist slipped past his lips. Danny hid. He was under no illusions about his current ability to defend himself or others. It was nonexistent. Crying out wouldn't do anything, either. His voice was as small as he was. No one would hear him. Hiding was the best, and only, option.

He hiccuped, and another puff of mist left his mouth. This ghost, whoever it was, was powerful. Danny hoped it wasn't Vlad. He waited, listening. But as he did so, he rapidly became convinced that the ghost was familiar to him. In a good way. A friend, not an enemy. Danny hadn't quite worked out how to identify individual ectosignatures yet, but this one felt... soothing. Safe. Then he heard it. A ticking sound.

Slowly, cautiously, Danny emerged from his hiding place under the dishwasher. Clockwork was sitting on the kitchen floor, his ghostly tail curled around him, staff laid across the coils, watches around his wrists, glass-fronted pendulum clock ticking away in his chest.

"Hello, Daniel," said Clockwork, quietly. Danny jumped, and shrunk back. Danny liked Clockwork, he trusted Clockwork, but the size difference was off-putting, and Clockwork's voice sounded louder, deeper, than it should. (Danny suspected that this was because his eardrums were now much smaller, but he wasn't in the mood to contemplate that, at the moment.)

"Clockwork?" asked Danny, his heart hammering. (How must _his_ voice sound to Clockwork?)

"Yes," said Clockwork, his voice even softer. The ghost smiled softly. "Let's get you taken care of now, shall we?" He put one gloved hand on the floor, palm up.

Danny made a sound that could have been correctly interpreted as relief after a great deal of stress, and ran out, climbing into Clockwork's hand. He immediately felt better. Danny supposed that he was absorbing the excess ectoplasm and ectoenergy that Clockwork gave off with his ectosignature. It was nice of him to make it so easy for Danny to do that, to let him take them so freely. Then, as Clockwork floated upwards, he felt a sudden, sharp increase in the amount he was absorbing, and he looked up at Clockwork in surprise.

Without really knowing why, Danny began to tremble, and then he started to cry. "Th-Thank you," he said, sobbing, as Clockwork slowly drifted towards the basement door. "I'm s-sorry."

"It's alright," murmured Clockwork, quietly enough that it didn't hurt Danny's ears. "It's alright, Daniel." He began to stroke Danny gently, with one finger of his free hand. "You have nothing to be sorry about." The older ghost cloaked them both in invisibility, and phased them through the basement door. Then Danny felt the subtle shift in reality that told him that Clockwork had stopped time.

As they floated down the stairs, Danny's tears began to slow, Clockwork's assurances, ectosignature, and rhythmic tender contact, and the ticking of his watches and clock all serving to calm Danny.

But what waited for them at the bottom of the stairs made Danny anxious all over again. Jack had brought the Crammer downstairs, and he had dismantled it. But Clockwork could fix that, couldn't he? He could roll back time, return to when the Crammer had been intact.

Danny looked up at Clockwork hopefully. "Can you fix it?" he asked.

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.

Usually, Clockwork let Daniel solve his own problems (not to mention many other peoples' problems). This was not because Clockwork did not want to help. He did. He wanted little more than to spirit Daniel away, wrap him in safety and love, and give him every good thing in the worlds. Clockwork deeply regretted that doing so was outside his ability, not only because of the Observants, but because Daniel himself would not tolerate such behavior for long, and because Daniel, and the universe at large, the _timeline,_ would be better off for it.

This did not mean that Clockwork was happy with the situation, not did it mean that Clockwork was prepared to let Daniel suffer unnecessarily. This particular situation was a prime example. Forcing Daniel to follow this scenario to the end would help no one. Yes, Daniel would have eventually determined that he needed to radically increase his intake of ectoplasm and ectoenergy in order to survive , and FentonWorks had several sources of both, but it would have taken time, the amount he would have had to consume would have been distressing, and the behavior his mixed instincts would have driven him to to prevent his starvation would have been frightening and confusing. Then, he would have had to persist until his father had repaired the Fenton Crammer.

No. There was no reason to let Daniel suffer through this. So, careful as always to avoid the attention of the Observants, Clockwork brought himself to FentonWorks. He would have preferred to arrive earlier, but a number of factors (the Observants, the movement of Daniel's parents around the house, and the movements of passers-by outside, and a particularly recalcitrant paradox) meant that this was the earliest that he could appear in the Fenton household. Normally, to make contact with Daniel, Clockwork would have simply stopped time and put a medallion around his neck, but Clockwork hadn't a medallion small enough, and he didn't want to frighten Daniel by suddenly appearing. The poor child was stressed enough as it was.

So Clockwork waited for an opening, a moment when both Jack and Madeline were away, outside of the kitchen, and then he made himself clearly visible, in the least aggressive position that he could manage.

He knew when Daniel made his appearance that he had only been waiting a few minutes, but, ironically, it felt like much longer. Eons, perhaps. Again, Clockwork simply wanted to pick him up, and hold him, embrace him, but he didn't want to scare him away. He had to let Daniel make the choice to come to him, or not, had to let Daniel be in control of at least that small portion of his life.

He was very pleased when Daniel came to him after only a small amount of fear. Yes, that was the most probable outcome, but there were a number of less satisfactory futures.

At once, Clockwork began to take measures to ensure that Daniel had enough energy, enough sustenance. It was a simple act, one that any ghostly parent did frequently. It was not, however, something that Daniel often encountered, and it upset him. Clockwork comforted him the best he was able, worried about what his reaction would be to the scene waiting for them downstairs.

It took Daniel only a second to make sense of the rather confusing mess of parts strewn over the table. Then he turned and blinked up at Clockwork, his eyes shiny with hope and recently shed tears. "Can you fix it?" he asked.

Clockwork smiled sadly. "Not as quickly as your father can, I'm afraid. Nor can I rewind time to before it was broken. You see, the weapon broke when it was fired at you. If I were to take you back to before that point, or bring that version of it to the here and now, I would create a paradox that involves more than just myself." He could also create a temporal copy of the Fenton Crammer, and that was a skill that he intended to teach Daniel, if only for its utility in healing, but then there would be two of the things. One was bad enough. The components Jack had used to create the item were unique, impossible to otherwise replicate, and difficult to destroy. Clockwork would not be responsible for adding to that problem.

"And that's against the rules," said Daniel.

"I'm afraid so," said Clockwork, apologetically.

Daniel gave him a shaky smile. "That's okay," he said. "It's not like we can do anything about that, right? So... Do I just... Wait for Dad to finish?"

"Yes," said Clockwork. "But I thought that I would see if you would like to join me in Long Now, instead of waiting here."

"Really?" asked Daniel. "Is- Is that okay? I won't get in your way, or anything?"

"Not at all," said Clockwork, giving Daniel a gentle smile.

"Okay," said Daniel. "If you're sure that it's okay with you."

Clockwork's smile broadened, and with a wave of his staff, he opened a portal to Long Now, and stepped through.

Daniel blinked. "You have a kitchen," he said, sounding surprised.

"Where did you think those cookies came from?" asked Clockwork, amused.

"Dunno," said Daniel, clinging to Clockwork's fingers, and yawning hugely.

"You must be tired," said Clockwork.

Daniel looked up at Clockwork, and blinked slowly. "Okay," he said. Then he slumped over, unconscious.

Clockwork froze as he berated himself for not keeping better track of possible futures. He hadn't meant to do that. What he said shouldn't have done that, really. Daniel must have been even more tired than Clockwork realized. Either that, or he was far more eager to please than the average child ghost. He sighed. Despite not needing to breathe, Clockwork found the human habit cathartic. He had hoped to give Daniel some food, and spend some time talking to him. No matter. Daniel needed his rest.

Clockwork had made up a small bed for Daniel (creating something like that was simple, compared to the task of miniaturizing one of his time medallions), and he moved to fetch it, cupping the now gently purring Daniel securely in his hands. Then Clockwork noticed his scar itching. He paused.

The scar was a physical reminder of the oath he had sworn to the Observants, an oath that made him their servant, and put his powers at their disposal. It tended to itch when they were using or manipulating those powers, and itched more when they were blocking his ability to see the paths of time.

It was probably nothing. This wasn't an unusual occurrence. Often, they blocked his vision just to show that they could. To show that they owned him. Normally, Clockwork would ignore it, unless they had blocked something that he had actively been looking at.

But Clockwork did not normally have Daniel with him. He was seized with an overwhelming desire to protect this child. _His_ child. If there was even the slightest chance of the Observants making an appearance, the little bed simply wasn't a safe enough place, not with the things the Observants had done, had tried to make _him_ do, to Daniel in the past.

Then Clockwork found himself inspired, apropos of nothing. Considering how he usually viewed the world, always seeing into potential futures, this was unusual. A new set of futures spooled away, branching off from the moment of the idea. None of them showed Clockwork that Observants would be visiting him in the near future, but those futures might just be the ones being blocked.

Clockwork quickly located the bed, it was still part of the plan, and carefully tucked Daniel into it, going so far as to wrap the child's arms around a miniature teddy bear. Then he opened the glass front of the clock set into his chest. It felt odd to do this. Clockwork had never quite gotten used to the timepieces set into his body, despite not recalling a time before they existed. No matter. He picked up the tiny bed and it's even smaller occupant, and placed them deep inside the cavity in his chest, well away from prying eyes. Then he closed the glass door.

Having done this, Clockwork felt both relieved and curiously satisfied. Daniel would be safe, now; even the Observants would not crudely violate the privacy of Clockwork's body. Daniel would be comfortable. He would have access to all the energy and ectoplasm he needed.

.

.

.

Warm was the wrong way to describe how Danny felt. Since the Accident, and especially since developing ice powers, 'warm' was not the term that sprang to Danny's mind to describe emotional contentment. 'Cozy' worked. 'Comfortable' was fine. 'Correct' sounded a little clinical, but was also a good descriptor. He felt _right._ He felt good. He felt safe. Like he was in a big family hug, and his parents had left their ghost weapons somewhere else.

He could tell that he was in a bed. He wasn't sure how he had gotten into bed. He certainly didn't remember going to bed. Sadly, that wasn't all too unusual for Danny.

He sat up slowly, noting that he was the right size for the bed. That was good. He was already short and slender for his age. Being half an inch tall was something else entirely. It was frightening, disorienting. Although... Being held by Clockwork hadn't been that bad.

Danny continued his bleary survey of his surroundings. It looked like he was still in Long Now. He was wearing blue footie pajamas with yellow stars on them. He wondered if his normal clothes were still shrunk, and if the pajamas had been put on him before or after he had returned to this size. Hopefully, his shoes had gone back to normal, otherwise he'd have to explain to his parents how he had lost another pair of shoes. He hugged the teddy bear closer to his chest, and hung the blanket around his shoulders like a cape. (These were nice things. He would have to do something nice for Clockwork. Clockwork was very nice to him. But what should he do?)

It was, he decided, time to find some food.

He got up from the bed, still wrapped in the blanket, and began to wander around. He was looking for either Clockwork or Clockwork's kitchen, but preferably Clockwork.

As Danny wandered, he once again began to idly consider his emotional state. Not in those words, of course. He was just thinking. Feeling. Contemplating. Often, maybe even normally, Danny felt on edge. Prickly. Defensive. Withdrawn and exposed, in equal measure. Even when he shouldn't have, even when he should have been safe and comfortable. But right now, right now he felt... Soft. Gentle. He wanted to touch things. He wanted to be touched, be held.

He really wanted to find Clockwork.

There was no sign of the older ghost, however, and Danny couldn't recognize anything. Although, he wasn't well-acquainted with Long Now to begin with. He rarely came here, and when he did, he rarely saw more than the rooms right off the main entryway. Normally, this was around when Danny would have started to get anxious. He was alone in a strange place, he had been away from Amity Park for an unknown period of time, and he was hungry. But he wasn't. The ticking sounds emanating from every direction had an almost soporific effect on him, and he didn't really _feel_ alone. Which, again, would normally have been cause for alarm, but felt comforting here.

But, eventually, Danny started to get tired of searching, and he really was getting hungry. His human half was, anyway. His ghost half was getting enough energy from his surroundings that he didn't really _need_ to eat. He just _wanted_ to, and he'd come to the conclusion that he always felt better when he fed both his halves some time ago.

So, softly, and a bit hesitantly, Danny called out, "Clockwork?"

"Good morning, Daniel," came the immediate response. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes," said Danny, looking left and right for Clockwork. "Thank you." He looked up. "Thank you for getting me back to my normal size, too." Danny turned, looking behind him. "How did you..." He frowned, distracted from his question by Clockwork's non-appearance. "Where are you?" Ghosts could become invisible to one another, and did so frequently during fights, but it took more energy than 'simply' being invisible to humans, and was actually kind of rude, if he understood the jumbled explanation he'd gotten at the Christmas Truce party correctly. (There still weren't a lot of ghosts Danny could just talk to, and he was very often too busy with protecting Amity Park to go looking for them so they could explain obscure points of ghost etiquette to him. If they could spare the time themselves, and knew anything about etiquette in the first place. Although, come to think of it, Dora would probably be okay with him asking her, and she knew about etiquette, being a princess, and all... Maybe he should ask.)

"Well..." said Clockwork (Was it just Danny, or did he sound a little _sheepish?)._ "I'm afraid that you are not yet back to your normal size, Daniel."

"But... The bed?"

"It is to scale."

"Oh," said Danny, somewhat disappointed, but trying not to show it. "But... Where are you?"

"That requires some demonstration," said Clockwork.

"What do you mean? Are you alright?" asked Danny, worried.

"I'm fine, child," said Clockwork, sounding amused. "Just... Look to your right."

Danny followed the instruction. Some distance away, behind spinning gears and a swinging pendulum, was what looked like a transparent glass wall. Now Danny was amused. "Did you put me inside a clock?" he asked, walking to the wall.

"After a fashion," replied Clockwork. "Yes, you could say that."

The glass wall swung open as Danny ducked around the pendulum. He walked up to the edge of the floor, and looked out. "I still don't see... Oh." Danny found Clockwork's gloved hand on the door, and traced it up his arm to his shoulder, to his face, and came to the conclusion that he was standing inside Clockwork, which was... Weird. Danny found himself adjusting his view of the world yet again. Someday, he would be unsurprisable. He frowned. That wasn't a word. There _was_ a word for that. It reminded Danny of pancakes.

"I believe the word you're looking for is unflappable."

"Oh," said Danny. "Yes. Thank you. Why-?"

"I like to keep the people I care about close."

Danny found himself turning red. "Oh," he said, very intelligently.

Clockwork raised a hand, palm up, to the edge of the opening. "We should get you some food."

Gingerly, Danny stepped out. "Thank you," he mumbled, willing the heat to drain from his cheeks.

Moments later, Danny found himself set down on the counter, next to a tiny (but still large in comparison to him) bowl of soup, and a saltine cracker. He had almost forgotten that it was dinner time, not breakfast. It had only been around two or three when Clockwork had picked him up (literally) from home. Wow. He picked a salt crystal off the saltine and licked it.

"So," he said, "does this make you a grandfather clock?"

Clockwork smiled. "If you like."


	6. Chapter 6

**Hi there. Thank you for reading. Finished this a little earlier than I thought I would, so here we go. This chapter is not a direct continuation of the last chapter, sorry. I couldn't quite figure out what to write for that...**

 **I've changed the description of this fic. I hope that it is a bit more descriptive now. What do you think?**

 **Finally, if you have any requests for this fic, please tell me. I won't necessarily do them, but they'll help get my creative juices flowing. (Juices! Yeah!)**

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Tree

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Clockwork was calling Danny in for help more often now. The problems were never very hard to solve, at least once the time travel was taken care of. It rarely took him longer than a couple of hours to track down whoever or whatever had been lost, and at least half of the ghosts he retrieved wanted to go back. Most of the places he was sent had languages he knew, or was learning. Danny had the feeling that Clockwork was slowly easing him into the idea of interacting with ancient and historical cultures. That, maybe, some day, he would be able to do something more for the older ghost.

Danny was easing into a lot of things, lately.

For example, Danny was getting better at telling when Clockwork was about to show up. He had started to get this feeling, just a moment before Clockwork stopped time. It wasn't his ghost sense, but it wasn't not his ghost sense.

Sam thought that he might be developing a sixth (seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth...) sense. Some kind of precognitive ability. It was Danny's suspicion, however, that Clockwork was doing this on purpose. That he was revealing himself partially to Danny so that Danny wouldn't be so surprised when a time medallion thumped against his chest.

For another, Danny had begun to call Clockwork 'Grandfather.' It had started as a joke, a pun, really. Calling Clockwork a grandfather clock was an easy jump, a silly nickname that Clockwork seemed to like. But then, Danny had started to get lazy, or, more accurately, tired at the end of missions, and one slip became two, three, four...

Danny was also gradually becoming better acquainted with Long Now. Clockwork would often let him, even encourage him, to explore the lair while he recovered from a mission, or waited for Clockwork to release a captured ghost. Danny had still only scratched its surface. Long Now was easily as large as all of Vlad's mansions put together.

So, Danny was always finding things that surprised him. Like the library that could almost rival Ghost Writer's, or the room occupied by what looked like nothing so much as a vast, interlocking, multidimensional, many-colored chess game.

Today, so far, Danny had found the kitchen, which he had found before, but which always seemed to be in a different place, and a room which had contained a single full-length mirror. The mirror had made him feel weird. Anxious. Then again, Danny often felt anxious. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that the mirror hadn't reflected him correctly.

He decided to get some distance away from that room before opening another door.

The next door he opened led outside, into an enclosed courtyard. This was surprising in and of itself. Danny hadn't realized that the tower had such a feature. He stepped out, hesitant, but pleasantly surprised. Thus far, Danny had encountered little in the way of plant (after?) life in the Ghost Zone.

The courtyard was circular, and divided into thirteen segments separated by walkways. Twelve of them bordered the edge, the thirteenth was is the center. The twelve outside ones each roughly corresponded to a month of the year. Two to his left were snowing, whereas Danny could feel heat coming from the flowering beds to his right. Where he was standing, the plants were bearing fruits and nuts.

In the center, was a huge tree, hugged by grapevines. Some of the branches were flowering. Some were bare. Others carried leaves and fruit, still others were shedding them. Danny walked towards it, curious. Not all of the fruits looked the same. Indeed, he had seen apples hanging next to cherries.

Once he was underneath the tree's spreading branches, he pushed himself lightly off the ground. An examination of the branches showed that they had been grafted on, most of the seams so old they were almost invisible.

Danny selected a peach from one of the summery branches, and then settled on one of the bare branches. He was, at this point, comfortable enough in Long Now, and with Clockwork to do this without worry.

He hadn't known that Clockwork liked to garden. This gave him an idea.

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.

.

Danny had asked for Sam's help. Sam knew a lot about plants, way more than Danny did, although Danny had been trying to at least learn what was edible.

He was doing a lot of time travel stuff lately. Odds were, he'd find himself stranded without food at some point. That was just what his luck was like, no matter that Clockwork wouldn't purposefully do that to him.

Sam, in the course of setting up and maintaining her greenhouse, had done a lot of research on rare, carnivorous, pretty, or otherwise cool plants. Including fruit trees.

Sam had, after Danny had explained what he wanted to do, made a list of possible trees. Danny had spent a long time going through the list. Some of them, he crossed off right away as being too expensive. Most of Danny, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker's pooled allowance was spent on things like first aid supplies and replacement clothes.

A couple were, honestly, a bit too embarrassing to buy, either because of the names, or because of how frilly and pink the flowers were.

(Danny didnt always have shame, but when he did, it was over really silly things.)

That left just a couple of options. After quite a bit of rolling around on his bed and groaning, a fight with a giant ghost weasel, and an encounter with Lunch Lady that had started as a fight but morphed into her trying to feed him suspiciously green ham sandwiches, he decided on a nice looking apple cultivar. It was one of those genetically modified ones, guaranteed to be tart and crisp. Danny had been surprised at first, when Sam had recommended it, but when he voiced his surprise, she had gone off on a rant about 'golden rice' and malnutrition that he had mostly tuned out.

(He used to feel bad about doing that, but if he didn't he'd drive himself insane. Ghostly Obsessions didn't have spacial limits. If he didn't mentally distance himself from problems like that, he'd try to solve them, and the fact was that he was just one person. He _couldn't_ solve them all. Clockwork said that this would be less of an issue for him as he got a better handle on things, but for now, Sam understood. She just couldn't help herself sometimes. Just like Danny.)

However, the first time he bought one, it got destroyed by Skulker before he even got it home. The second time it was eaten by a swarm of ghost termites (Sometimes Danny wondered if the universe was out to get him. He hadn't even heard of ghost termites before.). Then he had to wait a month, because fruit trees were weirdly expensive, and he was out of money.

Once he had bought a third tree, it was almost a mini-Obsession, and he was so touchy and defensive of it that most of the other ghosts steered clear. He was going to get the tree to Clockwork, one way or another.

There were a few ghosts, however, who hadn't gotten the memo.

Danny felt them before he saw them, and he froze. Those were not friendly ectosignatures, and they were strong ones. Not a good combination. He whirled, trying to locate the ghosts. He would, under these circumstances, prefer fleeing to fighting. He didn't want to kill the tree again, and he really didn't want to fight. If it was to protect someone, that was one thing, but he was out by himself in the middle of the Ghost Zone. The goal here was self-preservation.

Then he saw them. One of them, anyway. An Observant. There would be another one. Danny could count the number of times he had encountered Observants on one hand, but they always traveled in pairs.

Maybe they hadn't seen him yet. Maybe he could sink into invisibility, true and complete invisibility. Maybe he could slip away.

This hope was dashed when the eyeball ghost looked directly at him, and loudly announced, "Well, if it isn't Clockwork's little pet."

Danny flinched, but didn't say anything. He knew better than to treat an Observant the way he would usually treat a ghost that was insulting him like that. Observants were powerful and dangerous. Their organization more so. He knew very well that they had tried to make Clockwork kill him. He knew that they would try to have him killed again, if they gave him an excuse.

He backed away, keeping his eyes an the threat, and his arms wrapped around the plant. He was hugging it like a safety blanket, but he was also ready to abandon it at a moment's notice. Overall, he preferred to live. He could always get another tree. As for his life, well, he had already had so many second chances. He doubted that the universe would give him another.

"Looks a little preoccupied, doesn't it?" said a voice that was way too close to Danny. He started, jerking away from the voice, trying to put distance between himself and it. He couldn't fight back, he couldn't retaliate, he reminded himself. He couldn't give in to his reflexes. He had to look for an opening to get away.

"It does, doesn't it?" simpered the first. "No sign of the power that defeated Pariah Dark."

"Not even a sign of that oh-so-famous wit."

"I think it might be sick."

"I do believe that you are correct."

Danny didn't like where this was going. He redoubled his efforts to find a way out. He suspected that a third Observant was lurking nearby, and there really wasn't anything around that could provide cover from the ones he could see. He doubted that his shields would have much effect.

"Now, what do you do with pets that are so ill?"

"Why, regrettably, you put them down."

Oh, Danny really wasn't liking this. Maybe if he flew off in a weird enough direction, it would confuse them?

"Don't you think that Clockwork might even thank us for this service?"

"I think he might."

Faster thank Danny could blink, there were massive ectoblasts in each of their hands. He could feel the telltale tingle of an ectoenergy buildup behind him as well. Out of options, he flew straight up, only to be confronted by an Observant waiting in that direction.

"Stop!" shrieked Danny, panicked, not really expecting it to have any effect. Surprisingly, it did. The Observants hesitated, paused, just long enough for Danny to evade their attack. He pressed the small advantage this gave him, and fled.

.

.

.

Eventually, he made it to Long Now following that odd tug in his core. He was a little nervous. He usually didn't come to Long Now unless he was invited. Still, the doors swung open, and Danny walked in.

Clockwork was waiting for him. Danny wasn't very good at reading the mysterious old ghost, but he thought that Clockwork looked pleased to see him. The ghost was smiling, and not in the I-know-everything-I'm-so-mysterious way that he usually smiled. Blushing, Danny offered up the plant.

"Thank you, Daniel," said Clockwork, ruffling Danny's snowy hair, and taking the tree. "I know how much effort you put into this." He shifted from adult into child form. "Let's get that properly situated in the garden, now shall we?"

They took a much more direct route to the garden than Danny had taken before. It was only to be expected. This was Clockwork's lair, he'd know how to get around.

They came out into the little courtyard, and Clockwork, in elder form, flew up to the tree. Danny followed close behind, never quite touching the older ghost.

"Do you know what grafting is, Daniel?"

"Sort of," answered Danny. "Sam talks about it sometimes. It's when you take a branch of one tree, and cut it, and then another tree, and you make a cut on that, and then you put the cuts together, and you tape them, and the branch will grow into the tree. Like a transplanted limb, except the tree doesn't have to take, um, antirejection medicine."

"Very good," said Clockwork. "You know what I am going to do, then?"

"You're going to cut it, so you can graft it onto the tree."

"Very good," repeated Clockwork. "Please hold this," he said, giving Danny the tree. He created in his now empty hands a pair of green garden shears, and, a moment later, he cut the small tree cleanly, near its base. Danny bit his lip. He had known what was going to happen, but it still felt weird. Clockwork then cut a piece off the large tree. He took the small branch from Danny, and held it against the tree. "Watch closely," he said. Danny drifted closer.

The best way that Danny could describe what Clockwork did next, was to say that he pinched time around the graft. He got the feeling that Clockwork was... exaggerating what he was doing, so that Danny could feel it. It was a very strange sensation.

The grafted branches grew together even as Danny watched, the scar growing smaller and smaller.

"Wow," said Danny.

"I am going to show you how to do that," announced Clockwork.

"What, really?" asked Danny excitedly. There were so many things that he could do with a power like that.

"You must promise me, though, not to use it on humans, ghosts, or living or intelligent things, until I tell you that you may."

"Oh," said Danny, his excitement only a little dampened. "Okay. I promise. Why?"

"Not all things take to it as well as trees. In humans, it could cause gangrene. I know you dont want to discover that the hard way."

"No," said Danny. "Thank you, Grandfather."

"Thank you, Daniel, for the lovely gift." He put an arm around Danny's shoulders. Danny leaned into Clockwork's side, his core starting to purr. "Would you like a cookie?"

"Yes, please."


	7. Chapter 7

**Hello there. I've sort of been sitting on this one. Couldn't figure out how to end it. I hope that this works. Trigger warning for mentions of Spectra and self harm, neither of which are actually shown. No self harm is actually committed.**

 **Thank you to silverheartlugia2000 for inspiration! It kind of wound up a bit darker than I initially intended, though.**

 **I will take suggestions for this fic, and feedback is always appreciated! :)**

 **DB: I was trying for that implication, yep.**

 **Insomniac Dormouse: Glad you think so!**

 **Kimera20: Yes, absolutely. If you read my other stories (and here's some shameless self-promotion), you will get some of what that would look like.**

 **Sumi-Sprite: Do you mean, Danny _Pun_ tom? *Runs away from rotten tomatoes, laughing madly***

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Sanctuary

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Danny had done a lot of dumb things in his life (not the least of which resulted in turning his life into his _half_ -life), but he wasn't stupid. Usually. He supposed that compared to the rest of his family he was a moron, but in the grander scale, he was reasonably intelligent. He had to be, to survive being a half-ghost.

So he knew that he couldn't go home. Not looking like this.

He glared at his milky reflection in the ice, and prodded one of the burn blisters on his face. Yeah. His parents would definitely notice that, and, if they noticed that, they'd take him to the doctor, and it just went downhill from there. Even if the doctor, or nurse, more likely, didn't notice anything ghostly with his system as a whole, they'd give him an exam, and the very first thing they'd notice after the burns would be the incisions along the insides of his arms.

How would he explain those in a way that didn't sound completely insane? I haven't been cutting myself, it was the psychotic psychologist ghost? You know, the one that almost killed Jazz, and then infected the Casper High student body with weird ghost bugs? Even in Amity Park that story would get him committed. Ancients, he hated Spectra. He hated Spectra and her new burning hellscape island, and the fact that her fingers were now literally razor sharp claws.

(He hated how she made him feel, how he had welcomed the pain as a distraction from her voice. He hated that he was almost, almost tempted to pick up a shard of ice and just-)

(Ghosts could not be suicidal. It was a contradiction in terms. Danny had a lot of problems, but that wasn't one of them.)

He really wanted to go home. He really wanted to see his sister, and Sam, and Tucker. But he didn't want to freak them out. He sighed, and poked his face again. This would _really_ hurt once his nerve endings, and their ghostly equivalents, started to grow back.

(At least he had gotten the other, little ghosts away from Spectra. After being barred from her normal haunts on the material plane by Danny, she had turned to what was basically straight-up sadism to satisfy her superiority complex obsession. The results hadn't been pretty.)

His friends would worry, of course. They always worried. He would have called them, but he and Tucker hadn't quite figured out how to get a signal from the Ghost Zone to the real world.

The real problem, though, was his parents. He was already hours past curfew. They'd be furious with him when he got home. Which, judging by how much he had already healed, wouldn't be for several more hours. He sighed. He'd have to stay in ghost form, too, if he didn't want this to scar, or get infected, so it would take even longer. He didn't know why, but his human form tended to heal faster, while his ghost form healed more completely.

He supposed that he could say a ghost had kidnapped him... It was, after all, essentially true.

If he wanted them to get all crazy overprotective.

He resisted the urge to rub his eyes, and started to consider where he could camp out until he was healed enough to go home. He did have lots of allies, at this point, and even some of his 'enemies' would probably be cool with letting him crash on their couches, or whatever, but they were all kind of far away, and Danny was tired. He wasn't sure that he could make a long flight. He couldn't stay here. Here was creepy.

What he really wanted to do was go to Long Now. Clockwork always knew exactly what to say to make him feel better, but Long Now was as far away as the Far Frozen from here. He couldn't get there without rest.

Ember was probably closest. She and Danny had a sort-of truce going right now, but she would want something from him in exchange. Free reign in Amity for a day, probably. Or she'd make him stand in for her kind of flaky keyboardist/ back up singer. That kind of thing. (How Ember had discovered that Danny had taken piano lessons in middle school would be forever beyond him.)

Still, it wasn't as if he had a lot of options. He could feel himself doing that _thing_ where he would just shut down after a fight. If he didn't go now, he wouldn't make it.

He drifted cautiously from the cover of one lavender rubble island to the next. He didn't want to get into another fight. He especially didn't want to get into a fight with someone who used fire. That made his choice to go see Ember sound even dumber, but as he had established, it was that, or try to find a place to hide out here.

Yes, he was feeling sorry for himself. Really, who wouldn't?

Then the air in front of him tore open, and Danny pushed himself deep into invisibility, because, heck, he didn't want to fight someone who could do portals, and he wasn't in the mood to trust strangers.

But the figure that emerged from the swirling tear wasn't a stranger. It was Cujo, and Cujo wasn't terribly bothered by invisibility. He homed in on Danny, tackling him, and licking his tender face. Danny lost hold of his invisibility almost instantly, and was very thankful that Cujo was in his smaller form. He was more thankful when the small dog stopped. Danny knew Cujo meant well, but he was in enough pain as it was.

Once Cujo was situated in a more comfortable position on Danny's lap, Danny started to pet the small dog. He already felt a lot better with a friend at his side. Then, if Danny thought about it...

"I don't suppose that you have a lair, huh boy?" Danny suppressed a flinch at the rough sound of his own voice. Yikes. "Or how to get to Long Now really fast?"

Cujo yipped, seized Danny by the ankle, and took off. Danny wasn't terribly happy about this sequence of events (because _that hurts, Cujo!_ ), but he wasn't really upset, either. This was a familiar situation, and Cujo might actually be bringing Danny to his lair. It would probably be full of squeaky toys, but Danny couldn't bring himself to care. He could sleep! He didn't even particularly mind when Cujo dove through a dizzying series of portals. The screeching halt was harder to deal with - it _hurt_ \- but it meant that they had arrived and that he wouldn't be getting dragged around the Ghost Zone by his ankle anymore.

Danny blinked dizziness and spots out of his field of view, gently removed his boot from Cujo's mouth, and examined his surroundings.

He was standing in front of Long Now. Danny beamed, even though it hurt his face. He picked up the ghostly puppy, and swung him around. "Good boy, Cujo!"

"He is, isn't he?"

"Grandfather!" exclaimed Danny.

Cujo slipped out of Danny's arms and began to chase after the purple-robed ghost, who was currentlytaking the form of a small child. Clockwork, for his part, chose to teleport (or maybe he was stopping time?) repeatedly rather than get slobbered on. Cujo, however, was undeterred in his pursuit of the older ghost.

Danny had to cover his mouth with both hands to keep from laughing.

"Please come in, Daniel," said Clockwork in his very driest voice, before turning to drift back through the doors. Danny and Cujo followed. Once the reached Clockwork's sitting room, Clockwork pulled a squeaky toy from one of his sleeves, and tossed it down a long corridor. Cujo chased it, disappearing from view. "Very good boy," Clockwork said.

Danny suppressed another giggle. Clockwork shifted to face Danny, progressing into his adult form.

"Let's take a look at you, now, hm?"

"Okay," said Danny, easily. "Thank you."

"Sit down, please, and take off your shirt."

Danny quickly settled on the lavender sofa, and removed his shredded gloves. He had some trouble with the zipper of his suit, however, so Clockwork helped.

Jeez. His chest was all messed up, too.

Did he mention that he hated Spectra? Because he did. He really did.

Clockwork sighed, long and deep and disappointed, and Danny's mind kicked back into high gear, trying to figure out what he had done wrong. Because he must have done something wrong for Clockwork to make that sound. Maybe he wasn't supposed to have fought Spectra? Maybe he shouldn't have gotten hurt? There had to be something.

But Clockwork gave him a brief, careful, embrace. "My poor sweet child," he murmured, just barely loud enough for Danny to hear. "You are so brave, to keep going. Let no one tell you otherwise."

Danny's pulse slowed again, returning to the normal, nearly undetectable rate it generally kept to in his ghost form. Clockwork wasn't angry with him. That was good.

Together, Clockwork and Danny cleaned and bandaged Danny wounds, starting with the ones on his hands and wrists, and ending with his bruised ankle. They left his face unbandaged. Burns needed to breathe.

Then, wounds cared for, Clockwork gave Danny a pair of pajamas to wear. He also offered Danny a bed, but Danny was too tired to get up, and just curled himself into the corner of the couch, quickly falling asleep.

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Clockwork draped a thick blanket over Daniel, and sat down next to him.

He was, idly, considering hunting down and destroying Spectra. The act would be cathartic, incredibly so, but the Observants would, undoubtedly, be displeased if he did so. Even though they should have been attempting to capture her themselves. Convincing someone to commit suicide was a heinous crime. Then, too, he was trying to downplay how important Daniel was to him.

If the Observants had any idea of the depths of Clockwork's feelings... Well. There was a reason he was hiding them. But he just had to hide for a little longer, and then the Observants would have no legal recourse, no grounds on which to separate Clockwork and Daniel, or to demand, once again that Clockwork end Daniel.

They could try illegal methods, of course, but that would be incredibly foolish if them.

Daniel whimpered. Clockwork's lips flattened in worry. That would be his nerve endings and silver cord, the ghostly equivalent, starting to regrow. There was, unfortunately, nothing Clockwork could do about this short of heavily drugging Daniel, and Daniel was not someone who enjoyed artificially altered states of consciousness.

Daniel moaned again, this time louder, and Clockwork put a hand on the child's shoulder, and strengthened the output of his ectosignature. It was a small comfort, but it would show Daniel that he was not alone, that this was a safe place. A sanctuary.

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Danny jolted awake, breathing heavily. He'd been having a nightmare, but it was already slipping away. He couldn't remember what it was about, except that it hadn't been one of the worse ones.

He raised a shaking hand to his face, feeling the inside of his arms twinge, and ran his fingers over the smooth but tender skin he found there. It didn't have the heat in it that it did when he went to sleep. It felt sunburned, more than anything. A relief.

"Feeling better?" asked Clockwork.

Danny pulled himself up on the couch, and looked over to see Clockwork sitting beside him. He hadn't been expecting that. He knew that the older ghost, the Master of Time, had better, more important things to do than take care of Danny.

"Yes," he answered, finally processing Clockwork's question.

"Breakfast?"

Danny shook his head. "I need to get home. I'm really, really late." He rubbed the remnants of sleep out of his eyes, and frowned at the still-healing cuts on his arms.

"Daniel," said Clockwork, "you have all the time you need."

Danny froze halfway off the couch. "You mean that?" he asked, voice wavering. "You'd do that for me?"

"Of course, Daniel. You will arrive back on the material plane only minutes after you left. We cannot make a habit of this, but in this case, it solves more problems than it causes."

"Oh," said Danny. "Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much." He felt like he was about to cry.

"It is nothing," said Clockwork, giving the young ghost a quick hug. "Now. Breakfast."

Danny perked up. He _was_ hungry. He had skipped lunch, earlier, and fighting, and healing, took a lot of energy. Energy that hadn't been fully restored by the Ghost Zone. "Yes," he said. "Thank you."

Clockwork put an arm around Danny's shoulder, drawing him close. "Right this way."


	8. Chapter 8

**So, in my other story, Mortified, I had GW giving Danny lessons as a throwaway line, and I thought that I'd see how that might have happened. Enjoy! :)**

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Lessons

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Danny flew close to Clockwork, almost hanging onto the other ghost's tail. He couldn't help himself. He was nervous. It wasn't every day that Clockwork looked at Danny, sighed, and declared that he needed a tutor.

It was true that Danny wasn't the greatest of students, but he tried, and the pronouncement had hurt a little. He therefore resolved to do his very best with whoever Clockwork was bringing him to. He _would_ get his grades up. Although, grades probably weren't what Clockwork had in mind with this. The conversation that had prompted Clockwork's sigh had been about ghost culture. Well. Danny would learn about that, then, and he'd do his best and then Clockwork would be happy.

Sometimes, when Danny was alone and being introspective, he was a little unsettled by how much he wanted to please Clockwork, but Clockwork made him feel _safe._ Safety was no longer something that he took for granted. It wasn't so bad, was it, that he wanted to make Clockwork happy in return? It was only natural, right?

Danny wasn't thinking about that right now, though. He was trying to guess who his tutor would be. Clockwork had said that it was someone he had met before. That made for a long list, but Danny could start to rule people out. It had to be someone smart, who also had time, that he wasn't already learning something from.

That actually ruled out most ghosts that he knew well. Frostbite, Pandora, and Dora were all really busy with their respective Realms. Most of the yetis who Danny knew well were already helping him with his ice powers. Many of the people Danny hung out with in Pandora's Realm spared with him and told him stories on a regular basis. Dora had decided that, as Danny was one of her knights, he had to be able to act the part. Then there was Wulf. Wulf probably knew a lot of stuff, but he wasn't the tutoring type.

That took Danny into the land of acquaintances, frenemies, allies, and sort-of buddies. He had initially suspected that it would be a yeti, Greek, or Maddinglyite that he didn't know very well, but then Clockwork had lead him away from all three of those Realms. Then Danny wondered if it might be Poindexter. Poindexter was intelligent, or at least nerdy, even if Danny wasn't at all sure what Poindexter could teach him. Then they had passed Poindexter's lair.

That shortened Danny's list considerably. A whole lot of the ghosts he regularly interacted with were teaching him _something._ Or trying to. Danny chalked it up to weird ghost stuff, or the insanity that Obsessions could sometimes drive people to. Danny knew that he had done some weird stuff himself on behalf of his Obsessions.

Even Ember had taken to kidnapping him now and again, for more than just filling in for her keyboardist. She kept trying to give him voice lessons. Shudder.

Then there were the ghosts who were, honestly, not bright enough to tutor Danny. Danny wasn't the brightest bulb, but a lot of the ghosts he fought were downright dim.

Finally there were Danny's flat-out enemies. Danny couldn't imagine why they would help tutor him, though.

So Danny was mystified. Thoroughly mystified. He didn't know anyone out here in this part of the Ghost Zone. Except for...

Ghostwriter.

"Clockwork?"

"Yes, Daniel?"

"We aren't going to see Ghostwriter, are we?"

Clockwork glanced back, smiling, eyebrow raised. "You picked that up quickly," he said.

"Is that a good idea?" asked Danny. "He doesn't like me very much. Because I, um, you know, accidentally destroyed his poem and, um, didn't apologize."

"But you did apologize," said Clockwork, "when you broke him out of Walker's prison."

"Yeah, but that was way later, and when I said sorry he yelled 'I don't accept!' and ran away." Danny paused. "I mean, we were being shot at at the time, but still."

"He has had time to think about it since then."

"That doesn't mean that he's forgiven me."

"It doesn't mean that he hasn't."

"I guess."

"And I can be very convincing."

Danny blinked at the older ghost. That didn't mean what it sounded like, did it? Because it sounded kind of like a threat.

They touched down on the steps of Ghostwriter's library. Danny nervously examined the stone lions at the bottom of the stair (this was the Ghost Zone and sometimes statues were not statues) as Clockwork flew up to the tall double doors and knocked.

Ghostwriter, clearly already in a bad mood, threw open the door, and froze. He looked like a deer caught in headlights. "You," he whispered, staring at Clockwork. Then he caught sight of Danny. "You," he repeated, this time with less shock and more anger.

"Yes," said Clockwork dryly. "Us."

Ghostwriter's eyes flicked between Clockwork and Danny, then went narrow. "What do you want?"

"Well, I do believe that you've met my grandson," began Clockwork. Ghostwriter blanched. Danny watched the interaction with some fascination. "It is unfortunate, but my duties mean that, as ironic as it sounds, I do not always have the time to teach him when he is available to be taught. It is my understanding, however that you have quite a bit of free time."

"Who told you that?"

"No one did," said Clockwork. "They didn't have to. I know everything, after all." He smiled with all his teeth.

"So you want me to..."

"Be his tutor."

"Absolutely not!" exclaimed Ghostwriter. "The last time he was in here, he destroyed hundreds of books! And my keyboard!"

"After you chose to attack him during Christmas." Clockwork hummed contemplatively. "I understand that you are having trouble with a legally minded individual. I could make that go away. Or I could... Do something else. Your choice. In any case, I believe that Daniel apologized." Clockwork paused. "It was around the time that he freed you from prison."

"It was his fault that I was in prison in the first place!"

Danny flinched, guilty.

"If you had only waited until the Christmas truce was over, then you would not have been brought to Walker's attention. Daniel, while he did commit a social faux pas, did not break the law. Or force you to." There was that smile again. "I would say, then, that it is your fault that you were in prison. It remains to you to stay out of prison. I am offering you an opportunity to do so."

Ghostwriter looked at Clockwork. Then he looked at Danny. Then at Clockwork. Danny. Clockwork.

"Fine," he snapped, finally.


	9. Chapter 9

**Hello. This is short, and I don't really know where it came from. I hope you enjoy it anyway.**

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Vocabulary

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"Clockwork," said Danny, frowning at the faintly glowing book in front of him, "can you tell me if I'm pronouncing this right?"

"Certainly," said Clockwork, half distracted by the view through one of his time screens. That was a situation that he would have to monitor.

"Utkar."

"Uhtceare," replied Clockwork.

"Uhtceare," repeated Danny, carefully.

"I see that Ghostwriter is teaching you Old English."

"Just a bit," said Danny. "It's weird how different it is. But it has some pretty useful words. Like, I have uhtceare all the time. If someone asks me what's wrong and why I look so tired, I can say, uhtceare, rather than explaining how i was lying awake in bed since midnight. Way shorter. Except that no one knows what uhtceare is, so that kinda cuts down on it's utility."

"Yes, that does tend to happen," said Clockwork. "Languages change, words fall out of use, new words are created or borrowed, and, with time, the language becomes unrecognizable. That is the case with most things."

"Yeah," said Danny, "I guess so." He fell silent for a few minutes, then turned around on the sofa so that he was hanging over the back, facing Clockwork. "Hey, Clockwork?"

"Yes?" replied Clockwork, patiently, turning away from his screen.

"If I learn this, and this counts as a separate language from normal English, then I'll know six languages. English, Old English, Esperanto, Latin, Elysian Greek, and French." He paused, as if waiting for the statements to sink in, or for Clockwork to comment. "That's really weird, isn't it? I mean, that sounds like what people say in tv shows or in books to show that a character is a genius. Learning languages is supposed to be hard, but it's just been... happening, I guess." Again, he paused. "Is this a ghost thing? It is a ghost thing, right? A power or just something that all ghosts have? Because I know I'm not a genius."

"You should give yourself more credit, Daniel. I fear that your family and friends have afflicted you with unreasonable standards."

Danny flopped down on the sofa in a physical display of exasperation. "I'm a C- student. I'm barely average. Come on, this is some kind ghost power, or ghost ability or something. Lots of ghosts that I've met are multilingual. Right?" He sat back up, looking to Clockwork for an answer.

"Most ghosts who know many languages do so because they have existed for a long time, and among many cultures, or because they learned those languages in life."

Danny tilted his head. "Only most?"

"There is a power that allows one to speak many languages. It is, however, vanishingly rare."

"Hah! I knew it!"

"It also does not help one truly learn a language."

"... Wait, what?"

"As far as I can tell," continued Clockwork, "you do not, in fact, have that power."

"But that doesn't make any sense," objected Danny.

"Considering the infinite variety of ghost powers, and that you have manifested other unique abilities, it is not impossible that you have developed a power that allows you to acquire languages more quickly."

"You say that like you don't know," said Danny.

Clockwork smiled. "Despite my earlier claims, I do not, in fact, know everything. Call it dramatic license on my part."

Danny's eyebrows knit together as he parsed that information. "So, you, what, can't see what's going on inside of people?"

"Not unless it is, or could be, revealed in time."

"So we'll never know."

"I would not say that it is impossible. Time is vast, and knowing the future is only one of the many things that can change it. Or set it in stone, as the case may be. The 'mind reading thing,' as you call it, is simply a combination of me looking a few minutes into the future, and knowing you very well."

Danny shut his mouth, swallowing the question he was about to ask. "That's unnerving."

"Is it?" asked Clockwork, settling next to Danny on the couch. If Danny didn't know better, he would say that Clockwork sounded worried.

Danny hummed a little, and leaned on the older ghost, listening to the ticking of the clock in his chest. "Not you. It's just that I- I guess I don't like thinking that I'm that predictable. That's the unnerving part."

"Daniel, trust me. You are anything but predictable."

"You're the one who'd know," said Danny. "Does Ghostwriter actually think that I'll use any of these words? I mean, the opportunity to use lanspresado isn't going to come up in every day conversation, although mumpsimus might come up more often than I'd like. _Mumpsimus._ My parents have lots of mumpsimuses." He scowled. "Lots and lots. Or is that the wrong way to say that... A mumpsimus is the idea, not the person who has the idea, right?"

"It can be both," said Clockwork.


	10. Chapter 10

**I know I said that I was only going to be posting ectober pieces this week, but I got inspired. This is a continuation of chapter 5, which is the one where Danny got shrunk.**

 **I really like writing this because of that dynamic between Danny and Clockwork. Clockwork is this really old, really powerful, really wise, almost godlike ghost, and Danny is this little tiny sugar sweet thing, who is powerful, but rarely knows what's going on.**

 **silverheartlugia2000: Hello. Sorry I didn't respond to your last comment. Yes, Danny doesn't know a lot about ghosts, and prior to this Danny hasn't had all that many positive adult role models. I'm not really doing the 'all the ghosts are just misunderstood' thing. They do attack Amity Park. But I am trying to make them more multi-layered.**

 **Please review.**

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Tiny 2

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Five hours ago Danny had been alone and scared. He had been hit with the Fenton Crammer, a shrink ray invented by his parents, and he had been exhausted, frustrated, and vulnerable. Now he was in Long Now with Clockwork, safe, well rested (a small miracle in itself), and finishing off a large (to him) bowl of soup.

He was actually surprised that he had finished it all, including the saltine. He did tend to eat a lot, he was a teenager, but usually he didn't eat so much all at once. He supposed that his currently small size might have something to do with it. He had a vague recollection that smaller animals ate more in comparison to their size.

He sighed at the empty bowl, and then looked up at Clockwork, who was watching him with a very indulgent expression on his face. Danny tipped his head to the side in confusion. He loved Clockwork, but he never knew what he was thinking.

Wait.

Back up that thought.

He loved Clockwork.

It must be true, otherwise it wouldn't have popped up in his brain so easily. It was weird to think about, though. He was a teenager, and a teenage boy at that. He didn't love people outside of his family. Well. He loved Sam and Tucker, but he had known them for so long that they were practically family, and Jazz sometimes said that he loved the people of Amity Park, or else he wouldn't put himself at risk for them so often, but this was different. He hadn't known Clockwork for even a year.

"We will be waiting for a while yet," said Clockwork, and Danny found himself immediately and thoroughly distracted from whatever he had been thinking about before. Clockwork had his full attention. "Would you like to accompany me while I work? I could use a fresh pair of eyes on some of my projects."

Danny nodded, happy and relieved to be helpful. That desire, that impulse, to do whatever Clockwork wanted, whatever he needed, was not as strong, not as painfully present in his thoughts, as it had been when Clockwork first revealed that Danny's family, friends, and teacher were safe, and that Dan had not killed them, but it was still there.

Clockwork offered his hand to Danny, and Danny climbed into it. It felt so nice and secure in Clockwork's hand. It was comfortable and safe. He did have to fight off the bizarre urge to nibble on the older ghost's fingers, but as a half-ghost Danny had become used to the occasional strange impulse.

"Daniel," said Clockwork, "would you mind attempting to change forms?"

"Okay," said Danny. He mentally reached inside himself, to his core. Unlike before, at home, when he had been forced into human form, his ghost form came to him easily. The rings flashed over him, faster than usual, and he was Phantom. Again, his mood improved. With his ghostly abilities available again, he needn't feel so vulnerable, and he could _feel_ Clockwork more easily like this.

He started to purr, and wound his ghostly tail around the base of Clockwork's ring finger. He wasn't really registering how he was acting, he was just happy, and happy to be happy.

Clockwork gently stroked him with one finger, just like he had the first time he had picked Danny up. "Thank you, Daniel," he said. "You should turn back, now. We need to conserve your energy."

Danny complied, noting that he did indeed feel more tired than he had been before, more drained than he should have been, based on how briefly he had been in ghost form.

Clockwork nodded, and smiled again. Still petting Danny, he drifted out of the kitchen.

Danny rapidly lost track of where they were with respect to the kitchen, but didn't really mind. Everything he saw here was so interesting, so different. He rarely got to look at any part of the Ghost Zone without being on edge, always ready for an attack. But he could trust Clockwork to keep him safe, so he could look with only curiosity on his mind.

Long Now was fascinating. Many of the walls were made entirely of gears. Some of the gears had colorful, striped candles resting on them, burning with fire of every shade. They passed by an elaborate orerry at one point, and Danny very badly wanted to stay and look, but he also wanted to see what Clockwork was doing, he wanted to _help_ , so he just watched it go by with wide eyes.

At last they came to a room full of time viewing screens. Clockwork's viewing screens were strange. The screen part of each device looked like nothing so much as giant magnifying lenses, but attached to each frame were gears, levers, strips of metal with strange symbols, grasping claws and things that looked like lasers. The images they contained seemed to rest both on and inside the lenses.

Clockwork brought them to a very large screen that was set horizontally to the ground. One of this screen's many attachments was a semi-circular table that curved around half the lens and supported a number of tools. Some of the tools were surprisingly mundane, hammers, pliers, scissors, tweezers and the like. Others, Danny couldn't name. There was one thing that looked like a magnifying lens, except that it contained the rainbow burst of a planetary nebula. There was a golden tube covered in designs that crawled along its surface. There was a mirror that-

Clockwork flipped the mirror over. "No need for that, I think." He gazed contemplatively at whatever was shown in the glass of the time screen. Danny wasn't at an angle where he could see it well, but it looked colorful. "I am afraid that I will need both hands," said Clockwork. "Would you mind watching from my shoulder?"

Danny shook his head, and Clockwork raised his hand so that Danny could clamber from it to his purple-clad shoulder. Danny steadied himself by gripping a fold of Clockwork's hood, and putting his feet on top of the gear-shaped clasp that held Clockwork's cloak on.

"Very good," said Clockwork. Then he gestured down at the time screen. "Now, tell me, what do you think?"

Danny followed Clockwork's gesture. Rather than a scene in the glass, there was an image af a sparkling, pulsing, multi-colored tangle of string, wire and webbing. He frowned.

"It's pretty," he proposed, finally. "But... It's wrong. There's something... I don't know. What is it?"

"It's a paradox," said Clockwork. "More precisely, it is a metaphorical representation of a paradox. An interface, if you would."

"So, it represents someone going through a portal and changing something?"

"It is a bit simpler than that," said Clockwork. "There are no people involved, at least not directly. The cause is a small object falling through a portal, traveling back several minutes, and affecting the initial event. This causes the event to become more complicated with each successive iteration." Clockwork indicated the points of interest with a gloved finger, using levers to zoom in and out, and to rotate the image. Danny nodded, making note of how one string was wound throughout the knot, others joining it, the first dragging them along, the pattern becoming more complex with each successive layer.

It wasn't the only string at the beginning, though. Other gossamer strands wove through those first few layers of the knot, though Danny quickly lost track of them.

"What about those?" he asked, pointing.

"Other, less central objects in the paradox. But, see here, their importance grows. Then, here, this is the point at which the paradox, hm, how should I say this? This is the point at which it becomes dangerous, at which it begins to threaten to tear, and damage the timeline."

Danny hummed, signaling his understanding.

"My question to you is, what would you do to unravel it?"

Danny examined the knot. It was quite the puzzle. However, "Couldn't you just cut the first string?"

"Would you like to try that?"

Danny bit his lip. "What would happen to the other, the, um, less central objects? Would one of them take the first one's place?"

"Very good," said Clockwork, reaching up to touch Danny again. Danny leaned into the contact. "It is something that happens quite often with these kinds of paradoxes. The smaller strands, in the absence of the larger one, will combine. Other items will be pulled in, and the paradox will be as strong as ever. The only change is that you have destroyed an object- and you can see why that would be an issue."

Danny nodded, and adjusted his position. "Can you turn it around?" he asked, stalling.

Clockwork pulled a lever, and the image began to slowly rotate around its center. Danny watched it, head tipped to one side, trying to divine a way to untangle the the dense ball of string.

"Couldn't you make it so that the portal doesn't form?"

"That is a possibility, however, due to the way that natural portals form, another would appear nearby shortly thereafter. Besides, portals are not solely under my jurisdiction."

"They aren't?"

"No. Remind me to introduce you to my sister, Nephthys."

"Nephthys?" repeated Danny, tasting the name. It was familiar, but he couldn't place how.

"Nephthys, Ancient Master of Death."

That's why it was familiar. "I think I might have met her," said Danny.

Clockwork paused. "You might have, at that."

"So, you have to get permission from her first? Or you need her to do it for you?"

"No. I could do it myself, and she would find no fault with me. I simply do not like stepping on her toes, so to speak. When I can find a way around disrupting portals, I do so. She does the same. Overall, it is better to let natural portals be."

"I don't get it," admitted Danny.

"If not released, pressures and energies build over time. Natural portals release that. Playing with them can create thin spots, weak points, and cause other problems. Then there are the interpersonal issues that such careless action might cause. You know as well as any how ghosts hold grudges. I could explain more, but it would be complex."

"Okay," said Danny. "What if you caught whatever it was when it went into the Ghost Zone the first time?"

"Ah," said Clockwork, picking up a pair of pliers. "Let's try that out, shall we?"

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Clockwork worked through a total of three paradoxes with Danny. The session concluded with the rather frustrating (to Danny) revelation that the most complex of the objects they had dealt with was a microscopic piece of dust, and the greatest time frame only a fraction of a second. Paradoxes involving people and choices were, according to Clockwork, much more complex.

But this led Danny to another question. "Clockwork, isn't our fixing a paradox a paradox?"

"Yes. But not all paradoxes become dangerous," replied Clockwork as he tidied his work bench, liberally applying telekinesis.

Silence, and then, "Is Dan a paradox?"

"You could define him as such, yes. His entire timeline was a paradox."

"He's dangerous."

"Yes."

"Could you get rid of him like this?" asked Danny, pointing at the wavy, curling lines of the latest resolved paradox.

Clockwork paused. "No."

"Why?" Danny was becoming agitated. Thinking about Dan always made him agitated. He couldn't think about Dan without remembering.

"There are a number of reasons," said Clockwork. "But at this point, the largest is that it is no longer necessary to do so. He is safely imprisoned here in Long Now."

Danny froze, not even breathing. He had somehow managed to forget that Dan was here. Dan was here. In Long Now. In the thermos, yes, but how long would that hold up? He was _here._ Dan was here.

He was now breathing very rapidly, but clearly not enough oxygen was getting to his brain. His vision was going gray around the edges and he had bent inward, fists curled in the thick fabric of Clockwork's robe, pulling threads out of place with his tiny fingers, ready to lash out at a moment's notice. He could barely hear Clockwork continuing to speak over the sound of the blood rushing through his ears.

He felt something large touching him, but he ignore it, knowing that it was not Dan. If it had tried to move him, though, he would have fought, would have struggled.

He knew he was having a panic attack. He just couldn't stop it.

Without any warning that Danny could detect, an icy sensation, not unlike being dropped into a pool of frigid ectoplasm, overcame him. His heart rate dropped precipitously, and the world spun away from him as he rocked, dizzy, on his perch. He blinked, trying to clear his vision, confused.

He felt energized, but sleepy (like he had after that one Thanksgiving he and his family had spent with Tucker's family; there had been no undead turkeys that year). His breath was cold, and his ghost half was almost uncomfortably close to the surface, humming just below his skin. Overcharged was the only word he could find to describe how he was feeling. He was, at least, more aware of his surroundings than he had been.

A large hand steadied him as he tipped too far to one side. Danny stared at it with a look that might have been called wild if it wasn't so drowsy. It was like he had been sedated.

That thought had him building up a panic again.

"Daniel," said a deep, calm voice.

Danny turned towards it. Clockwork. His hood had been knocked down. Danny had never seen the older ghost with his hood down before. The panic ran out of him like water from a broken cup.

"Clockwork," he said his tone almost reverent, "you have _hair._ "

"As do you."

"But you have _so much._ "

Clockwork shifted from elderly to middle aged as Danny spoke.

" _So much,_ " repeated Danny. "Like three shampoo commercials worth. You always have your hood on, I thought that you were bald. Not that being bald is bad, but..." Danny trailed off, fascinated. "Do you always have so much hair?"

Clockwork's next shift took him to childhood, and his hair shrunk to only a couple of inches long.

"No," he said, shortly, the ghost of a smile playing around his lips.

Danny gasped, purposefully exaggerating his actions. "It's so fluffy."

Clockwork hummed, possibly in agreement, possibly in amusement. "It isn't that fluffy," said Clockwork. "Here, I think I want you in a more stable position before I start moving around."

Clockwork picked up a pliant and rather limp Danny, and set him on his hand. Danny tried to sit up, but quickly tipped over again. He giggled, and made himself comfortable in his prone position. Clockwork shifted back to his adult form. He'd been in adult form a lot more often, lately.

"It's so shiny."

"I'm a ghost, Daniel. All of me is shiny. I glow."

"But it's _more_ shiny," insisted Danny. He fell silent for a moment. "Clockwork?" he said in a much smaller voice. "What just happened?"

"You had a panic attack."

"Yes, but, after that."

"Much like in the human world, _trusted_ adults have a great deal of influence over children. That influence is most easily felt through auras. What you might deem ectosignature and ectoenergy."

"Oh," said Danny, understanding. "That felt weird, though."

"I might have used slightly more force than was strictly necessary," admitted Clockwork.

"That's okay," said Danny. He yawned, then sighed. "You really do have a lot of hair."

"So I've been told."

"Why do you hide it?"

"... I lost a bet," said Clockwork, finally.

"Why would they make a bet to make you cover your hair? It's so pretty."

"Not to cover it, to grow it out."

"Oh." Another moment passed. "Who could you lose a bet against?"

"I really do have to introduce you to Nephthys."

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	11. Chapter 11

**Hey there. This is a long one, and I'm not sure that it's really one hundred percent done done. It kind of just... ends in the middle. Maybe consider this a part one?**

 **Note: This is set after Masters of All Time**

 **I used Sumi-Sprite's prompt for this. Thank you Sumi-Sprite! Your reviews are great for inspiration!**

 **Cutiepie: Thank you. I'm glad you like my fics. :)**

 **Feedback is always appreciated.**

 **Happy All Souls Day!**

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Sick

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Nephthys stood before Clockwork, feet spread. hands on her hips, chin raised. Her blindingly white smile matched the color of her robes and contrasted with that of her face. "I win," she said. "That's three out of five. You know what that means." The last sentence was sung.

Clockwork couldn't decide whether to look at his fellow Ancient and adoptive 'sister,' or at his time viewing screen and the scene playing out within it. "How do you keep doing that?" he asked, frustrated. "It's statistically improbable!"

"You know, you sound like the Observants when you do that."

Clockwork fixed Nephthys with an offended look. "I do not. They would say 'impossible' not 'improbable.' But how _do_ you do it?"

"I'm not cheating, if that's what you're asking," said Nephthys, slyly, grin threatening to engulf her entire face. They were ghosts. It was possible. It had happened before. Then, she relented. "You may be able to see the parade of time from above, with all of its twists and turns, and the paths that it may or may not take, but _I_ know the drivers and performers." Her smile turned smug. "Just like I know you. Now, take it off."

Clockwork flipped back his hood, reflecting that he should really know better than to gamble with Nephthys by now. Still, she was among the very few ghosts whom he could call friend, rather than ally, enemy, annoyance, or responsibility.

"No, no," said Nephthys, "the whole thing. That's what we agreed on."

"I know, I know," said Clockwork, removing the clasp and then swinging his cloak off of his shoulders. "Just give me some time."

Nephthys narrowed her eyes as Clockwork folded the cloak over his arm. "That's a trap. You want me to say, 'then take some' or 'make some,' then you'll blink out and come back with that cloak back on and say that, well, you experienced a week with it off, and I told you to do it, so I can't fault you. That's not going to happen. You're going a full, objective week with that off."

Clockwork hadn't expected it to work, so he shrugged.

Nephthys leaned back again and shook her head. "I don't understand it. You've picked out such a pretty form, but you hide it."

Truth be told, Clockwork had neither noticed nor particularly cared that his current guise was 'pretty' until Nephthys had brought it up. Yes, he had endeavored to make it aesthetically pleasing, but his main goal had been to craft a form that would allow him to interact appropriately with Daniel. 'Pretty' was a side effect. But Nephthys had brought it up, repeatedly, and now Clockwork was beginning to wonder if it was a minor Obsession of hers, or if she just really enjoyed teasing him.

Self-consciousness regarding one's appearance was both a novel and overrated experience, in Clockwork's opinion. His sympathy for humans, who were trapped in their bodies by fate, not choice. had grown exponentially in the past few months.

Being the infinitely old and wise, not to mention mature, ghost that he was, Clockwork thought that he was handling it quite well.

He changed into his oldest, most decrepit form, just to spite Nephthys. Her smile didn't waver.

"That's the spirit I know and love," she said. "Come on, let's make those cookies. You still have the oven that defies the laws of thermodynamics and laughs in the face of entropy?"

"Of course I do," said Clockwork. "It has gotten more complex since last time, though."

"But that's part of the fun! The challenge!" she said, leading the way from the viewing room. "Human conceptions of natural laws..." she trailed off, shaking her head. "They're so creative, they're so inventive, but they're just missing a few pieces. It's cute, isn't it?"

"Hm," said Clockwork, not really listening. There was a tickle at the back of his mind, a possible future version of himself trying to get his attention. He paused, letting Nephthys head to the kitchen without him.

There was a knock on the door. Clockwork, surprised, stopped time. He must be an early version of himself. He was rarely surprised in the final version of events. He flew to the door, and opened it.

Crouched before the door, in ghost form, was Daniel.

Clockwork frowned as he took in the child's posture, doubled over, pale face half hidden by his knees, arms pressed desperately into his stomach. Clockwork's gaze drifted back, to where Daniel's friends, Sam and Tucker, were standing. They, too, looked ill, their faces tinted green with more than the light of the Zone.

There was a limit to the amount of information that Clockwork could receive this way, and he had been trying to be sparse about stopping time since Daniel had begun exhibiting temporal powers, so he started time again.

Daniel looked up at him as he did so, eyes dim with pain. "I'm sorry," said Daniel, his voice hoarse, words slightly slurred. "I know you're not the ghost of miracle cures, but we-" he broke off, first coughing, then gagging and choking. Finally, on hands and knees, he retched, an ectoplasm green snake slithering from between his lips. Behind Daniel, Tucker pressed his hands over his mouth, and Sam bit her lip. Daniel buried his head in his knees and moaned.

Clockwork put a comforting hand on Daniel's back, and then reversed himself, throwing himself back to his past.

"- cute, isn't it?" Nephthys was saying, as she walked to the kitchen.

Clockwork went to the door, summoning a duplicate to go investigate the recent past, and throwing his cloak down on the couch. He grimaced as he learned what had happened. He had known that something similar would happen soon, but the addition of random chance often made it difficult for him to pinpoint exactly when certain events would occur. Nephthys had then distracted him from the matter, allowing the event to sneak up on him. Not that Clockwork would dream of blaming her.

"Clockwork?" said Nephthys, noticing his deviation from their path.

"My apologies," said Clockwork, and he truly was apologetic. "Something has come up."

"I understand," said Nephthys, "but you aren't getting rid of me that easily. I'll be in the kitchen when you're done."

Clockwork nodded to her in reply, distracted by branching possible futures. All too often, finding the best one was like finding a needle I'm a haystack.

He donned an impassive expression, and opened the door, just seconds before Daniel knocked on it. Daniel's eyes widened as they always did at this tiny display of power.

"You had best come in," said Clockwork.

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Amity Park, earlier.

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Amity Park was having an normal day. Well, normal for Amity Park, anyway. Or perhaps average would be a better term, although nothing in Amity Park could be labeled either by the standards of the wider world.

Still, that morning, people had gotten up, eaten breakfast, gone to school and work, avoided ghosts, taken shortcuts both mundane and supernatural, and had generally carried on with their lives. A few minutes before noon, another daily occurrence made itself known. A portal opened up, and started disgorging ghosts.

This particular portal was a bit unusual in that it opened up directly over city hall, and in that the ghosts weren't Amity Park regulars, but instead a large number of neon green snakes. Still. Average. Such was life in Amity Park.

Also normal: the arrival of the resident ghost and the resident ghost hunters, all of whom, including the ghost, were grumbling about missing lunch.

The thing was, the snakes were small, and fast, and, unfortunately, the resident ghost hunters were more interested in fighting the resident ghost than they were in fighting the invaders. A large number of the snakes escaped into the city at large. This was atypical.

So, without any way of tracking the escaped snakes without running afoul of his parents, Valerie, the GIW, etcetera, etcetera, Danny went back to school. He wasn't at all happy about this. There were a bunch of potentially poisonous ghost snakes slithering all around Amity Park. Still, there wasn't anything he could do. At least if he left, the ghost hunters might actually go after them, instead of him. If he stayed, he'd just be playing hide and snake with the hunters.

Hide and snake. Why was he like this? That wasn't even a good pun.

He got back just in time to be late for fifth period, and spent the next hour brooding. Obsessing, really. He didn't like not being able to help, he didn't like the fact that there was a threat he couldn't deal with right now. He didn't like his parents and Valerie, and who knew how many other people being in danger without him there to help, to protect them.

He broke three pencils and worried st a scab until it came away, bloody.

Sam and Tucker were seated next to him in sixth, though, and they were able to talk him out of it. They were able to appeal to his sense of reason, and agreed to help him hunt down any snakes that remained after school. They also agreed not to tell Jazz. Jazz was busy with college applications, and Danny didn't want to distract her.

Then he only had to survive, jittery, through seventh, and then he was out, they were out, under their favorite tree in the park, and they could get down to buisiness.

"Your parents and the Guys in White are still out and about," said Tucker, looking at his PDA, the Ghost Watch theme playing through its tiny speaker. "Valerie's gone, though. At least, there aren't any mentions of Red Huntress around."

"Makes sense," said Danny. "Her shift is starting in, like, fifteen minutes." He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet. "I should stay human if the Guys in White are still around. That should be fine. They were class threes, maybe fours."

"No resistance to the thermos?" asked Sam.

"Nope," said Danny, popping the 'p.'

The class system wasn't something that ghosts used themselves, it was too general, and ghosts were made of exceptions, but it was a useful shorthand for power levels. Quite possibly, it was the most useful thing the GIW had ever created. Class threes and lower could always be sucked into the thermos. Fours and higher usually had to either be distracted or weakened first. The Box Ghost was a low four. Ember was a five, when she wasn't supercharged. Spectra was a six, again, when she wasn't supercharged. So was Walker. Danny typically registered as a seven when in ghost form. Vlad, too, was a seven, if a higher one than Danny. The Ancients were probably eights. By Tucker's calculations, Pariah Dark had been a nine. A terrifying, terrifying nine.

"We should split up, then," decided Sam.

Danny gave her an incredulous look. "Sam, that's what people who are about to die in horror movies say. People who split up are eaten by CG monsters and guys in cheap rubber suits."

"Well, it's a good thing that we don't have any CG monsters or guys in cheap rubber suits. Unless you count the Nasty Burger mascot guy."

"Yeah," said Danny. "We have real monsters and guys in expensive white suits. Who are also monsters. Just, like, morally, rather than physically."

Sam crossed her arms. "I get where you're coming from," said Sam, "but, seriously, Tucker and I can handle class fours perfectly fine. Heck, Mr Lancer can handle the odd class four. Remember what he did to Boxy?"

Danny nodded reluctantly. "But this isn't just one snake. There's a whole horde of them. It was like Sharknado, except with snakes."

"Have you ever even seen that movie?" asked Sam.

"Let's stay on topic here, what if they're poisonous or something?"

"Yeah," said Tucker, "what if they're poisonous?"

"Okay, okay. We can compromise here. If they're poisonous, we stick together, if not, we split up. Okay? Because if we split up, we can cover way more ground, and get the snakes way faster."

"Okay," agreed Danny as Tucker nodded.

"So, first question, did the snakes have round pupils or pointy pupils?"

"Round," said Danny, "but even if that means something for normal snakes, it doesn't need to mean the same thing for ghost snakes."

"I know," said Sam, "I'm just trying not to waste time. Were the snakes striped?"

"No," said Danny. "They were all solid green."

"Okay, so we can't definitively say that they are poisonous... And isn't the word venomous, anyway?"

"Yeah," said Danny. "Do we... I don't know, catch one or something? How would we even tell if they're pois- venomous? Would we like, look in their mouths or something?"

"That sounds dangerous," said Tucker.

"Eh, I have thick gloves," said Danny, flexing his hands. He could reinforce his gloves with ice, too, if he wanted to.

"I think that would work," agreed Sam. "Venomous snakes are supposed to have venom pouches inside their mouths, so we could probably tell by looking."

"Okay," said Danny. "Let's go catch a snake."

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"I have no idea what I'm looking for here," said Danny, staring into the snake's mouth. He had gone ghost to catch this snake. Tucker was at the mouth of the alley, watching out for GIW agents. Sam was next to Danny, playing herpetologist.

"Well, I don't see anything obvious. I think that they'd be obvious." She prodded the inside of the snake's mouth with a stick. "Nothing's squirting out." She made a face. "Could we stick it in the thermos now? This feels kind of cruel."

"Yeah," said Danny, really uncomfortable with the whole situation.

Sam sucked the snake into the thermos, and Danny returned to human form.

"I guess we're splitting up, then," said Danny, both figuratively and literally dispirited.

"Yeah," said Tucker, rejoining them. "But, hey, we'll be on the F-Phones, right? And, this way, we might find them all early enough to do some real hanging out."

"Yeah," said Danny, brightening. "Yeah. You will call me if anything goes wrong, promise?"

"You'd better believe it," said Tucker.

"Sure," said Sam.

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Sam was the first to be bitten.

This could have been predicted. She was a better fighter than Tucker, but she was also far more reckless. She also lacked Danny's ghost sense and superhuman reflexes. The prototype miniature detectors that they had snagged from the Fenton lab had been useful, but they weren't terribly accurate.

She discovered one snake by stepping on it. It reacted to that discovery by biting her on her calf.

She had caught it in the thermos before she had registered the pain.

Once she had realized that, heck, she had been bitten, all she did was shrug, check that it wasn't bleeding too much, rub some (improperly named) Fenton Ecto-Block cream into it, and slap a bandaid onto it. The snakes weren't venomous, and even if they were, the Ecto-Block would break down the ectoplasm it was made of.

Then she went to find more snakes.

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Tucker's reaction was more sensible. Upon having a snake drop on his head, he freaked out. He had always had a slight phobia of snakes. It was fine as long as they weren't touching him, but when they were...

It was, perhaps, ironic that Tucker, the kid with so many phobias, was best friends with a half-ghost superhero who kept leading him into situations where he would have to face said phobias... But maybe it wasn't ironic, just appropriate. Maybe it wasn't chance, but some weird subconscious ghost instinct. Danny did eat emotions. a Not that Tucker would blame Danny if that was the case.

He was too busy freaking about the snakes.

He called Danny.

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Danny, on the other hand, had been doing quite well until Tucker called him. He, after all, had advantages that his friends lacked, and was, surprisingly, more cautious than Sam in certain situations.

But then, Tucker did call, and Danny, in his haste to get to his friend, ran straight into a large... he hesitated to call it a nest. They weren't nesting there. A large conglomeration of ghost snakes.

Individually, the snakes were no threat to Danny. Even a group of five or ten wouldn't have been a problem. But with a group of over twenty, Danny couldn't keep track of all of them. There were simply too many. He was bitten.

He was bitten, and he instantly knew that something was very wrong.

Maybe the snakes weren't venomous, but there was something in their bite that made his core very upset. He felt sick. He hadn't been sick since... Goodness. He hadn't been sick since freshman year, the first time he had encountered Desiree.

If he was being affected like this, what was it doing to Sam and Tucker?

He fought off the remaining snakes, gaining another couple of bites, then went to Tucker's rescue. Sort of. Tucker didn't really need to be rescued. There had only been two snakes. Tucker had already gotten one of them.

"You got bitten?" asked Danny, chewing on his lip.

"Yeah?" said Tucker inquisitively. "Just a bit, on my shoulder. What's wrong?"

"I don't know. There's something wrong with these." He rubbed at one of his own bite wounds. "Let's find Sam."

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Sam was initially unconcerned. Her bite wasn't bothering her, and she was just a little amused by Tucker's freakout. But then Danny explained how he was feeling, and how he was getting progressively worse, she started to get worried, too.

"We should go to the Far Frozen," said Sam. "They'll know what this is, or how to fix it, at least."

"Yeah," said Danny, nodding and pale. That was a better sign than anything else to indicate how bad Danny felt. He'd normally never leave Amity Park when there were potentially dangerous ghosts lurking in it. But his next words made his thoughts more clear. "For you guys, too. And we need to get an antidote or something, for anyone else who got bitten."

"I think this might be just a ghost thing," said Sam. "I feel fine. What about you, Tucker?"

"I'm okay," said Tucker. "This hurts, but I've had worse. Anyway, I'd be getting notifications from Ghost Watch and stuff about people getting sick. We can't be the first people to get bitten by these things."

Danny made a distressed noise. He didn't like thinking about his people being hurt.

Then Tucker's PDA made a noise. He pulled it out and took a look at the screen. "Oh, heck."

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Danny was beginning to feel nauseous by the time they got to FentonWorks and started up the Specter Speeder. Sam took the wheel, Danny laid down on the backseat.

Neither she nor Tucker were feeling very well either. They weren't as poorly off as Danny was, but they were definitely sick.

They took off, into the Ghost Zone. "Danny, are you going to be okay until we get there? It takes a couple of hours to get there."

"I think I-" Danny broke off, coughing. "Probably," he said finally, falling back onto the seat. He did feel a little better in the Ghost Zone, but not much.

"I'll get you a bag," said Tucker.

"Thanks," said Danny weakly.

They flew on. For the first half an hour or so, the flight was almost peaceful. The few ghosts that attacked were weak, and were easily repealed by the Speeder's defences. Sam and Tucker didn't feel like they were getting any worse.

On the other hand, Danny would lapse into a coughing, almost choking, fit every few minutes. Tucker was leaning backwards over his chair, watching Danny with concern. Sam had almost crashed twice, and the second time she had only been saved by the Zone's inconstant tangibility.

Then, Danny doubled over coughing again. It felt different this time, though, deeper. The arm he was using to cover his cough was splattered with a fine spray of ectoplasm and blood. This was bad. He was choking, now. He could hardly breathe, and while that wasn't as much of a problem for him as it might be for a normal human, it certainly wasn't pleasant. Then something, something inside him, moved. He gagged. His stomach had clearly had enough of this, whatever it was. It felt like it had been tied in knots.

But he didn't, quite, throw up. Nothing came up. Nothing came in, either, and Danny realized he couldn't breathe at all. There was something in his throat, something blocking his airway. His throat convulsed. He gagged, and tried to remember how to do the Heimlich maneuver. Then the thing moved. It slithered, right out over his tongue, leaving a slick trail of ectoplasm behind it.

Danny gasped for breath, staring at the bright green snake on the floor. Suddenly, the snake was encased in blue-white light and pulled into the thermos in Tucker's hands. Tucker was staring at Danny, shocked.

"Danny..?" he started. "Did you just..?" This was outside of Tucker's comfort zone. It was outside of Danny's too, for that matter.

Danny pulled himself into a little miserable ball on the seat. The Far Frozen was still quite a ways off. At least another hour and a half. Danny wasn't sure he could stand to wait that long. There was another option, but Danny didn't want to bother Clockwork with an illness. Not after the ecto-acne incident. Danny didn't want Clockwork to think he was taking advantage again. That had been bad of Danny.

Something moved inside Danny's stomach. He moaned. He wasn't going to ask for a cure, or time travel. He was just going to ask for help, and maybe a hint. Possibly a hug. Danny needed a hug.

"Sam," he rasped. "Turn right twelve degrees, and angle us thirty-four up." That's about where that odd, secondary tug on his core led.

Sam turned halfway around in her seat. "But-"

"I don't think I can wait for the Far Frozen," he admitted. "Clockwork's closer."

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It was silly, but Danny was always a little surprised when Clockwork opened the door before he knocked on it. Danny knew perfectly well that Clockwork could see the future. Of course he would know that Danny was coming.

Danny opened his mouth to apologize, but Clockwork just invited them in.

Then Danny noticed that Clockwork wasn't wearing his cloak. Danny had never seen Clockwork without his cloak. He had seen him without his hood on, but that was different. Danny was about to ask if something was wrong, when he doubled over choking again. Then, all that was on his mind was the fact that there was a snake pulling itself up his throat.

As soon as he had air again, he realized that he had just vomited a snake onto Clockwork's floor. "Sorry," he whispered, unable to manage anything louder. He felt something shift, and the snake disappeared.

"There is no need to apologize," said Clockwork. "It's alright."

Danny sniffed, and nodded, not really capable of arguing why it wasn't alright.

"Is he going to be okay?" asked Sam.

"This is a common Ghost Zone malady," said Clockwork, not really answering as he steered Danny to the couch. "A favorite creation of a woman who calls herself Pestilence. It functions similarly to a virus, but on a larger scale. A snake bites a victim, injecting a portion of its ectoplasm, which forces the victim to produce more snakes from their own ectoplasm." He gently pushed Danny to sit on the couch. "Your ghostly immune system is still nascent. It will take some time for you to fight this off."

"What about Sam and Tucker?" asked Danny, voice still hoarse. "They're sick, too."

"Yes. That is a problem," said the older ghost, scanning Sam and Tucker. "You have enough ectoplasm to be infected, but not enough of it to actually form snakes. You also lack an appropriate immune response, meaning that although you will not get sicker, you also won't get better."

"So what do we do?" asked Tucker.

"And what about the people back home?" added Sam.

"The doctors of the Far Frozen have a partial cure."

"Partial?" managed Danny.

"Yes," said Clockwork. "It unfortunately requires the ectoplasm of a ghost that has recently recovered from the illness as one of its ingredients. I am afraid you will have to suffer through." Clockwork sighed. "I can, however, speed things along. You two should go to the Far Frozen and retrieve the cure. Daniel will be recovered when you return."

"Amity?" said Danny.

"Your parents will be able to replicate the cure, given a sample."

Danny let himself relax a little at that. He couldn't relax completely. Not with snakes squirming and slithering in his stomach.

"Are you going to be okay here, Danny?" asked Sam.

"Yeah," said Danny, closing his eyes. He listened listlessly to Clockwork giving Sam and Tucker more instructions and explanations.

It would take Danny longer to recover than it would take for Sam and Tucker to get to the Far Frozen and back to Long Now. Clockwork would have to pinch time, so that Danny would experience several days in the time that they were gone. They weren't happy about this. They had only met Clockwork once or twice since the bad future incident, and they didn't entirely trust him, even if Danny did.

Danny started to cough again, and then all attention was back on him. He finished, gasping, thankful that he hadn't vomited another snake. "Please," he said. "I'll be fine. Faster you go, faster you get better."

"Okay," said Sam, looking both reluctant and guilty. She had a guilt complex as bad as Danny's. She just usually covered it up better.

Tucker gave Danny a hug. "Get well soon, dude. I'm sorry I distracted you."

"Not your fault," said Danny, hugging Tucker back. He really needed that hug. "Be safe."

"Yeah, we'll be fine," said Tucker. Sam nodded.

They left, still looking at Clockwork nervously. Clockwork sighed. Danny winced, sure that the sigh, and the disappointment it signified, was directed towards him. Clockwork must have seen the wince, or have predicted it, because he turned more fully towards Danny.

"Daniel-" started Clockwork.

"I'm sorry," said Danny.

"What for?" asked Clockwork, raising an eyebrow. The old ghost touched Danny's forehead with the back of his hand. "It is only natural to seek help when you are sick, or injured. I am glad you came to me."

"But you-" Danny broke off, coughing again. "But with the ecto-acne..." he trailed off as Clockwork shook his head.

"I only meant to show you the dangers a paradox could present, not scare you away from seeking my help," explained Clockwork, gently. He ran a hand through Danny's hair. "You need to replenish your ectoplasm reserves. It could evolve to be dangerous for you if they get too low. It will take me a moment to put things together," he sighed again, "and to prevent my sister from demolishing my kitchen. Rest," he said, patting Danny's shoulder. "Everything will be fine."

Danny nodded. Clockwork favored him with a smile, and left.

Danny curled onto the couch, hoping that Clockwork wouldn't take too long. This was scary in a way that he didn't often deal with, and it hurt. He felt invaded and fragile, and now that Clockwork was gone, Danny was worrying about Sam and Tucker. They were out alone and unprotected in the Ghost Zone.

He was feeling unprotected, himself. He wrapped his arms around himself. He really wanted Clockwork. He wanted a hug. He wanted the snakes out of his stomach.

Then the coughing started up again. Danny gripped the couch for support, trying to stop for long enough to take a breath. It felt like forever before he was able to flop back onto the couch, panting like he had just run a marathon.

Danny then realized, to his combined embarrassment and horror, that he had torn the fabric cover off of the couch. Great. Poor Clockwork. First his sister (what was up with that, anyway?) was destroying his kitchen, and now Danny was wrecking his couch. It would be one thing if snake vomit was involved, he didn't have any control over that, but he had just torn the couch- Wait. Wait a second. This wasn't part of the couch. This was something that had been draped over the couch. He examined the fabric with a detached interest that became more intense when he realized what it was.

It was Clockwork's cloak. He recognized it, the color, the cut, the clasp, the embroidery on the interior lining, the way the lower edge trailed into mist. He could feel Clockwork's ectosignature in the weave.

A bout of shakes and shivers wracked his body. A new symptom. Wonderful. He hugged the cloak close to his body. It was almost as good as a hug, except not at all. Still, it made him feel better, to have Clockwork's ectosignature so close to him. True, the whole of Long Now, the whole lair, radiated Clockwork's ectosignature, but this was more... intimate? No that had weird connotations. Personal, maybe.

Another coughing fit. He laid down on the couch. Clockwork was taking a long time. He pulled the cloak over his shoulders. This was better. He was tired. The cloak felt nice. He wanted didn't like being sick.

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"What was it?" asked Nephthys as Clockwork entered the kitchen. She stood cheerfully over a disaster that even Clockwork would have difficulty cleaning up, her robes somehow spotless. "Fixed everything up?"

"No," said Clockwork, suppressing a groan at Nephthys's antics. "Daniel is here."

Nephthys's eyebrows went up. "He's here?" A smile played around her lips. "You should have said so earlier. I've been dying to meet him. Officially, I mean."

"He has a case of the viral snakes," said Clockwork, pushing debris away from the fridge, and opening it. "He will be here for some time. I'm sure you'll be able to see him before he goes. He isn't at his best at the moment, however. I doubt that he is up to meeting anyone new."

"Well, I'm not new, exactly," said Nephthys, "and I rarely meet anyone at what they would call their best." She helped Clockwork take a bowl of glowing green apples from the fridge. "Daniel, though..." She smiled, pleased and indulgent. "He was a special case from the beginning, wasn't he?"

"Yes," agreed Clockwork. "The very beginning."

"I remember our first meeting," said Nephthys, her voice tinged with exaggerated nostalgia. "It's as if it was only two years ago."

"It was only two years ago."

"Not the most magnificent or glorious of endings," she continued, "but such a brave child, so caring, so selfless. Even with those who are heroes in life, such a sentiment is difficult to maintain in the last moments. And Daniel is so young!"

"Yes. He is young, sick, and expecting me to return," said Clockwork, balancing more foodstuffs on top of one another.

"I'll help you carry these out to him," said Nephthys. "You should get him a blanket, too. This kind of illness can cause odd temperature variations."

"I am aware," said Clockwork, exiting the kitchen. He was concerned that leaving Daniel alone for so long would have a negative effect. Daniel did have a tendency to blame himself for things beyond his control. "Watch for snakes."

Daniel was, thankfully, still on the couch, and still awake. Waking him up would have been necessary, but unpleasant, particularly considering Daniel's current, somewhat pathetic, state. He looked like nothing so much as a kicked puppy: cute, but sad. That he had chosen to wrap himself in Clockwork's discarded cloak, which was really far too large for him, only served to accentuate the image.

Then Clockwork saw how Daniel was looking at Nephthys, and revised his assessment. He looked like a puppy that was _expecting_ to be kicked.

"This is my sister, Nephthys," said Clockwork, settling on the couch next to Daniel. With one hand, he assessed Daniel's temperature and ectosignature, and balanced the food with the other.

"You're the one he loses bets with," said Daniel.

Nephthys smiled wickedly, and perched on the arm of the couch. "That's me," she confirmed.

Clockwork frowned faintly. He didn't like how disordered Daniel's signature was, and he was running a slight fever.

"Are you mad?" asked Daniel.

"Why would I be mad?"

"I took your cloak." Daniel made no move to return the article of clothing.

"I'm not mad," said Clockwork.

"If anything," said Nephthys, "I'm the one he would be upset with." She reached over and flipped up the hood of the cloak. "It's only off because he lost another bet. You'd think that he'd know better at this point."

Daniel giggled a little at that, but the laugh turned into a cough, into choking and gagging, and another snake wound it's way out of Daniel's mouth. Nephthys dispatched it quickly, destroying the disease in a flash of green light. Daniel made a sound like the wheeze of a deflating ball, and retreated farther into the depths of Clockwork's cloak.

Clockwork put a hand on Daniel's back, sending him a steady, but hopefully not overwhelming, flow of ectoenergy. "Daniel," he said, keeping his tone even and gentle, "you need to eat, to replenish what you are loosing."

A whimper that Clockwork interpreted as _"hurts"_ emerged from under the cloak.

"I know," said Clockwork, rubbing Daniel's back in a small, comforting circle. "I know. With what is happening to your stomach and throat, you don't want to eat. It will hurt, but you will feel better."

Slowly, reluctantly, Daniel emerged. He then tipped into Clockwork, snuggling against the older ghost.

"It's alright," said Clockwork, giving Daniel a quick hug. "It will be alright." He shuffled the bowls so that the one he wanted was closest to Daniel. It was full of tiny, multicolored fruits, berries no bigger than the tip of Clockwork's smallest finger, each of which glowed fiercely. They were both small enough and soft enough that Daniel should have no trouble with them, and they were full of vital ectoplasm. They had no official name in any human language, but literal translations from several ghost tongues would give the name 'stardust fruit.' Clockwork thought it appropriate, given Daniel's fascination with the night sky.

Right now, though, the child was eyeing the berries with suspicion and disfavor. "What are they?" he whispered.

"Chenethi Antsha," said Clockwork, picking a tongue Daniel had some familiarity with.

"Stardust?"

"They're tasty," said Nephthys, reaching over to steal one from the bowl. "He grows these himself, you know."

Daniel now looked at the fruit with more interest. His hand emerged from the folds of Clockwork's cloak, and snagged an oblong sky blue berry. It went into his mouth. "It's tart," he offered. Then he made a face. "I don't know if I can keep anything down."

"You will still be able to absorb the ectoplasm," said Clockwork, encouraging Daniel to eat more.

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It was a while before Danny had eaten enough to satisfy Clockwork. It wasn't that Danny didn't want to eat, didn't want to feel better, didn't want to obey Clockwork, but eating, chewing, swallowing, was a painful chore, even with how soft and gooey the little berries were. He was exhausted. Expelling those snakes was difficult, taxing. Not being able to breathe while it was happening made it worse.

He just wanted to sleep. Preferably while Clockwork held him. Maybe it was selfish, but he couldn't bring himself to consider the wider implications and consequences of his actions at the moment. He was sick, and he wanted to feel better. Clockwork made him feel better. Therefore, he clung to Clockwork. He started coughing again. His stomach to roiled and rolled.

He wasn't going to get to sleep like this. Danny sniffled.

"It's alright," said Clockwork, his arm still around Danny's shoulder. "We've all been here before. Everyone gets sick."

Danny made an ugly, rasping sound in the back of his throat.

"Yes, I have been ill before as well."

"I've had my bad days, too," said Nephthys. She reached over to brush the back of Danny's neck. He flinched, shivering closer to Clockwork. Likely, she intended to be comforting, but Danny didn't know Nephthys very well at all. He had only just met her, not counting a half-formed and uncertain memory of something that may or may not have ever happened. He didn't like people he didn't know touching him. Especially when he was so weak, so vulnerable.

The couch shifted subtly, a sign that someone was moving, shifting their weight, or removing it.

"I'm going to go take another shot at those cookies," said Nephthys. She didn't make a sound, but Danny could feel her with his ghost sense, moving away. A touch of tension he didn't know he was holding onto slipping away.

"She always means well," said Clockwork, by means of explanation. Danny nodded. "She is simply rather enthusiastic, especially about change, and new things. That is her nature."

She did seem nice. She was just a bit too much for Danny to cope with at the moment.

Clockwork picked up a plate that contained what looked like a oblong biscuit. "This will be less pleasant to eat," he admitted, peaking back plastic wrap. "However, it will prevent new snakes from forming for a few hours. Long enough for you to sleep. That is the only thing ot is good for. I could not reccomend it for anything else."

Danny nodded, not questioning how Clockwork had something so specific. He was Clockwork. He had probably seen this coming weeks in advance. Sleep was good. Something that could stop his coughing long enough for him to sleep was nothing short of miraculous in his mind, never mind that his body craved more than just a few hours of slumber.

He pushed himself into more of a sitting position, so that he could eat what looked like a very flaky, dry, and unappetizing brick of... stuff. Actually, it looked a little like particle board, which made him blanch. He had eaten particle board before, courtesy of ghosts throwing him through walls, construction areas, furniture, etcetera. He always got little splinters in his tongue when that happened.

The biscuit wasn't much better, in the end. It was dry and difficult to chew, it poked his alread abused throat on the way down, and it tasted disgusting.

He was so eager to get the taste out of his mouth that he almost choked on the drink that Clockwork handed him next. Then he was choking in ernest, a other snake emerging from between his lips. He looked up at the older ghost with confusion. He had thought that the biscuit was supposed to keep that from happening.

"That remedy doesn't get rid of the snakes that have already formed, unfortunately. That should be the last one. For now." He offered Danny another drink. "This one will help you relax, so you can fall to sleep more quickly."

Danny took the powder blue beverage. Usually, he didn't like drugs, but in this case, with Clockwork prescribing it, he would make an exception. He took a sip. It was thick, sweet, and a little spicy. It reminded him of eggnog in broad strokes, but with different details.

"It will be a while before it takes effect," said Clockwork. "Would you like me to tell you a story, to pass the time?"

Danny nodded.

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Three quarters of an hour had passed before Daniel's eyes slid closed, and his chest began to rise and fall in the peaceful rhythm of sleep. When that happened, Clockwork ceased his storytelling, and picked him up, cradling him like a small child.

There was a room in Long Now that had been prepared for Daniel. It was hidden, secure, far from where the prying eyes of the Observants might roam. One could not reach it without knowing Long Now intimately, because the room, like many rooms in Long Now was set on a gear, and the gear moved. Clockwork took Daniel there now.

A bed with thick, plush covers sat beneath a ceiling painted with ancient constellations. Clockwork swept them back, and laid Daniel down. He then removed Daniel's shoes. That done, he went to ease his cloak from Daniel's grasp, but Daniel only pulled the cloak closer.

Well. It wasn't as if Clockwork was going to use it this week, and there was something incredibly precious about the image of Daniel wrapping himself in the cloak. He sighed, and pulled the blankets over Daniel before placing himself in a nearby chair. There was no need to leave. The duplicate he had split off earlier would be more than sufficient for any pressing task that came up. Nephthys was unlikely to _actually_ destroy his kitchen.

Besides Daniel had seized Clockwork's finger in his sleep, and seemed disinclined to release it. Clockwork needed no further excuse to stay.


	12. Chapter 12

**Hello there. It's been a while since I posted one of these. I should really be working on Mortified... But... Well.**

 **On another note, 101 followers! Woot! I didn't think that this would be all that popular.**

 **Also, does anyone else like looking at the stats for the first few days of the month? It kinda lets me see individual people doing speed reads. Like the one guy in the Bahamas, or the one dude in Belgium who read through the whole thing. Thanks for reading!**

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Tiny 3

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Clockwork had gotten out his smallest game boards. Their scale was still far larger than Danny's current one. It would take three of Danny laid end to end to reach from one side of the game board to the other. Well. That might be a slight exaggeration. Call it two and a half instead. Therefeore, the pieces were small enough and light enought that Danny could carry them around without undue strain, and large enough for Clockwork to still manipulate them easily, so long as he stayed in one of his younger, childlike, forms.

The name of the game was senet. Danny had never heard of it before, but Clockwork said that it was one of the oldest human board games, and that it was popular with the people of Aaru and Duat, also known as the Egyptians. The rules were fairly straightforward. The pieces were arranged beforehand. You rolled dice, well, _sticks,_ actually, to see how many spots you could move. You could bump back other players pieces. If you landed on this square, you had to go back to that one. You had to stop on that one square. On those other ones, you had to get exact numbers to move. The goal was to get all your pieces off the board.

It reminded Danny a little bit of Sorry, with a dash of Chutes and Ladders mixed in. Clockwork said that all three games were of the same type, and that the later two could probably trace their origins back to senet, with a bit of effort.

Danny was losing, currently. It was a little difficult to visualize the whole board when he was smaller than it. However, Danny was fairly certain that Clockwork was going easy on him, so it probably all evened out in the end.

"Here," said Clockwork pinching the sticks between his thumb and forefinger, and holding them out to Danny, "it is your turn."

Danny gathered them up in his arms like a bundle of kindling (or small baton-shaped ghost weapons, he had a lot more experience with those than with kindling) and then dropped them on the ground. "Five!" he exclaimed, bouncing slightly. Five was highest number you could roll. Now the question was, how could he use that good fortune?

But before he could do so, the atmosphere of the room changed. Danny tensed, crouching low to the table. Something was wrong. "Clockwork?" he asked, hesitantly.

" _Observants,_ " hissed the older ghost, spitting the name like a curse., his face and form aging.

Danny felt himself pale. The Observants did not like him. Actually, it was more like they loathed him. He wasn't sure why, at this point. He had fixed the Dan problem.

"Where should I hide?" asked Danny, because there really wasn't any question about whether or not he _would_ hide. He had no desire to interact with the Observants.

"Here," said Clockwork, laying his hand next to Danny. With the other, he swept up the game. Danny clambered up onto Clockwork's hand, whereupon Clockwork picked Danny up opened the door of his clock, and tucked Danny deep inside, far from sight.

This was... Okay, this wasn't entirely unexpected, but Danny still hadn't quite wrapped his head around being here, being in Clockwork, the first time. He wasn't in the part with the pendulum anymore. There were gears everywhere around him, and he was sitting on a large, slowly rotating gear. Danny couldn't even see how Clockwork had put him here, which would have disturbed him somewhat if he hadn't phased his own hand through his body on multiple occasions.

But then, the reason for Clockwork's haste became apparent.

" _Unuili_ _!"_

That, though muffled, was an Observant's voice. Assuming that Clockwork had only noticed them when they first arrived at his door, they had found their way to Clockwork's kitchen awfully quickly. This, for reasons that Danny wasn't quite able to articulate, struck Danny as incredibly rude. You weren't supposed to be learning the ins and outs of someone's lair when they didn't invite you, didn't even want you there. It was... invasive. Yes, that was a good word for it.

Danny swallowed a growl. Just because he was currently size challenged did not mean that he should act like a chihuahua. Right now, he should be staying quiet, so the Observants didn't notice him, and still, so that he didn't accidentally hurt Clockwork. Not that he thought that he could hurt Clockwork by mistake. Clockwork (probably) wouldn't have put Danny inside himself if he thought that Danny could hurt him.

Danny should also probably try to listen to what was going on. There were two Observants, and they were both speaking a ghost language that Danny couldn't identify. There were a lot of those. Still, even without knowing the language, he should still be able to learn something by how things were being said.

Right now, the Observants were angry and demanding, but calm, self-assured, and organized. Clockwork was... Well, the Observants hadn't given him a chance to speak, yet. He was anxious, though. Danny wasn't entirely certain how he knew that, but felt that it was in the quality of the ticking of Clockwork's clock.

Which, Danny realized as he caught his mind wandering and his eyes half-closed, still had a soporific effect on Danny. It was like his heart wanted to beat in time with the clock's slow rhythm. Danny shook himself all over. It wasn't the time to be sleeping. The Observants were still out there, no matter how nice, welcoming, and safe it felt in here.

Clockwork was finally given the room to respond, and his voice was dry and cool, sarcastic and biting. Danny didn't know how Clickwork did it. He wasn't ever able to keep that calm when, say, Vlad was talking dow to him. Then again, Vlad didn't have as much power over Danny as the Observants had over Clockwork.

Also, compared to the Observants' voices, Clockwork's was very loud. Almost painfully so. That made sense. Danny was probably really close to Clockwork's vocal cords right now. Or whatever it was that Clockwork used to make sounds.

Then Danny felt Clockwork moving. The Observants were probably making him do something. Danny felt a renewed surge of aggression toward the Observants. Why were they so mean? It was possible that they had found a real problem, but that didn't give them the right to be rude about it.

Danny was distracted from this, however, when the gear he was sitting on stopped and began to spin backwards, and everything began to glow blue-gray. The marbled metal of the gears seemed to scintillate and sparkle. The air tasted sharp and clean, but also soft, like salt and raspberries. Clockwork was using his powers. Danny would have held on to something, but there wasn't really anything to hold on to, so, instead, Danny laid down on the gear, trying to brace himself for whatever might be happening that way.

There was movement. Quite a bit of movement, actually, in a number of directions. Some of it was from the gear. Most of it seemed to be from whatever Clockwork was doing out there. The currents of the air kept changing.

Then Danny felt the shiver of a portal, the ambient ectoplasm levels began to drop, and Danny started to hear the mutter of human voices. French. From the sound of things, they were in a shop of some kind. Clockwork was doing something in the human world, then? He listened to what was happening. The words were muffled, but frantic. It seemed like someone had gotten their order misplaced, or dropped.

This went on for a few minutes, but then the words all ground to a halt,along with the gear. After a few minutes, sound started up again. At first, everything sounded like a repeat, like Clockwork had just looped time, but then the expected argument never occurred. The person got their packet and everyone continued on their merry way.

Then they went back through a portal, back into the Ghost Zone.

Almost immediately, the Observants verbally jumped on Clockwork. They were so _demanding._ Danny bit his lower lip. His Obsessions were being rubbed the wrong way with this.

"See for yourselves," snapped Clockwork, in English. "While you're at it, you can see yourselves out."

Clockwork then sharply propelled himself away. Danny heard the _bang_ of a door being slammed, and a few seconds later Clockwork stopped. Then Clockwork sighed so deeply that Danny felt it with his whole body.

Danny tried to hum to Clockwork reassuringly, but he was really too nervous for it to work well. He felt Clockwork sigh again.

"I'm fine," said Clockwork, his voice much quieter and softer than it had been. "I am sorry you had to deal with that, Daniel. That must have been quite frightening."

"I'm okay," said Danny. "You're here," he continued, sleepily. Now that the threat of the Observants was gone, he was drifting off again. He should really consider sitting back up.

"That helps?" asked Clockwork. There was a touch of humor in his tone.

"Mm," said Danny, glad that Clockwork was feeling better. "Love you," he mumbled, curling into a slightly more comfortable position. He shouldn't fall asleep here. Clockwork would want to take him back out. But it was just so nice, and soft, and safe, and he was just going to close his eyes for a minute, so he could hear the clock better...


	13. Chapter 13

**Hey there! It's been a while for this story, hasn't it? I hope I can smooth over any anger with an especially long chapter. ;)**

 **I think that I'm picturing this as happening some time between when the Tiny chapters happen, and when Sick happens. Not that I have anything like a rational timeline at the moment, even in terms of the actual episodes. I'm working on one, but, you know.**

 **So, you guys can consider this chapter to be me testing the waters for a 'weird Amity' collection. If I wind up making it, it will be a lot like this collection, only with team phantom hanging out in Amity Park and getting into weird situations, rather than Danny hanging out with Clockwork. Tell me if there's interest?**

 **Also, for those of you who are interested, now that it's Thursday, I am 25. Wow. How did that happen? I still feel like I'm a teenager most of the time. Yikes.**

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Celebration

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Danny sat on top of the ops center, looking over Amity Park, one leg pulled up to his chest, the other swinging freely over the edge of the building. It was a beautiful day, bright, clear, and warm, full of mid-summer glory. Even the ghosts were taking a break. Nothing could go wrong on a day like today.

Except, a year ago, on this very date, something _had._

Danny had died.

He took in a long, shaky breath, reminding himself that he could. That he could still breathe, that his heart still beat, that his body was still warm. Compared to room temperature, anyway. He was still alive.

But he was also dead, and had been for just a few hours shy of a year. The anticipation would be killing him, if it wasn't too late for that. He didn't know why he felt like this, didn't know he was so on edge that he felt like he might shake himself apart. He should probably go talk to Jazz, she knew his secret now, and she would probably say something soothingly incomprehensible about trauma and memories, but he couldn't bring himself to be around people right now.

Or, maybe more accurately, he couldn't bring himself to be around _humans_ right now.

His skin itched, crawling along the all but invisible scars of his death. He ran his hands up and down his arms, leery of using the nails he had chewed ragged earlier. He shook himself. He'd come up here to distract himself, not to wallow.

He raked his eyes over the skyline. He was probably the only one who could see it like this, with all its shimmering, unearthly secrets.

(The distortions of space and time that hung like pearlescent curtains. The streets that only existed from one direction, or by toll. The ghosts of unbuilt and forgotten skyscrapers. The galaxy swirls of natural ghost portals, visible to humans only as green disks. The straight roads that looped back on themselves. The shadow of the suburb that existed only on rainy days. The eager pulse of convenience store walls. The park forest that got deeper, _larger,_ the farther you went in.)

The fabric of reality was thin here, and growing thinner. It had probably always been that way, but it had grown noticeably more so since Pariah Dark stole the town in March. Even normal people were begining to notice the more obvious places. Danny knew that some people in his class had started to use the 'shortcut road' in June, last week he'd had to rescue Wes from a rather nasty, but luckily transient, spatial distortion (not that Wes had been grateful), and just yesterday he'd overheard a pair of convenience store employees discussing whether or not their store _usually_ had six rows of shelves, or just five.

He hoped it wasn't dangerous. Even if it was, he doubted that he would be able to stop it. His parents hadn't been able to.

Danny shuddered. His skin felt like it was too small. His human skin was too small, and his ghost buzzed and tingled right under it, his aura pushing on the underside like a thousand thousand pinpricks. He fervently wished to step out of it, to leave it limp and empty on the roof of the ops center.

At the same time, Danny knew that going ghost right now would be a _bad_ idea. More than that, he didn't want to give up even the appearance of humanity right now. He clung to life. He was alive.

As if to mock his resolution, invisibility gently washed over him, rendering him transparent and ghostly even in human form. He groaned, and buried his head in his arms. His heart was pounding, and something deeper in his chest, in the place he called his ghost form from, was trembling. He felt sick. Faint, in more ways than one.

What was wrong with him? Even if this was the anniversary of his- of the Accident, it was really just another day. Just like a birthday was really just another day. There wasn't, there shouldn't be, anything magical about it. Unless it was a ghost thing, or, more specifically, a Dead thing, to get horrible, crippling anxiety on the anniversary of the day they had become ghosts.

At least his Obsession wasn't acting up. Much. Everyone was safe today, and would stay that way, thanks very much, even if he had to claw off his skin to make sure. He might be all over Sam and Tucker in other circumstances, might be clinging to his sister, even shadowing his parents, but he didn't want to inflict himself on anyone else in this state. Possibly more importantly, he was afraid.

(If he was honest, he might say that he was up here hiding.)

Then he shivered and his breath came out white, his body detecting the presence of a ghost. He leapt to his feet (Tried to, anyway. His feet didn't quite make contact with the rooftop.) and spun, not really ready for a fight.

Luckily, though, it looked like he didn't have to fight. "Clockwork?" he said, surprised but relieved. "What- What are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

"Not exactly, no," said Clockwork, regarding Danny with what might have been sympathy. "Today is your Deathday."

Danny nodded, tilting to the side a little bit. Clockwork put a steadying hand on his shoulder, keeping him upright.

"Can you change?" asked Clockwork, carefully gentle.

"Will it help?"

"It will change your perspective," said Clockwork, "and it will make it easier for us to get where we're going."

Danny bit down on his lip, hard enough to taste blood. He really didn't want to change, he really didn't want to go anywhere. But Clockwork always had a reason for what he asked, so Danny reached for his ghost half (he didn't have to reach nearly as far as he usually did), and triggered the transformation.

Almost immediately, the feeling of his skin being too small vanished. It was replaced by a massive spike in anxiety driven straight through his heart. There was danger. There was danger somewhere. His family was in danger. His friends were in danger. His people were in danger. They had to be, otherwise why would he feel this way? He had to stop it, he had to make it stop, _now._ He had to help them, had to protect them, keep them safe, he had to go, go, go-

Clockwork caught him by the hem of his shirt, right before he launched himself off the roof. "They're fine, Daniel. The ghosts know what day this is for you. They won't disturb your haunt."

"Really?" said Danny, dubiously. "Even the animals?"

"Your friend, the Huntress, will take care of the few that will come through today. It will be a good learning experience for her."

"She won't get hurt?" asked Danny, nervously looking back out over Amity Park. Oh, gosh, all those cars. Cars were dangerous. He should-

"She will be hurt," said Clockwork, effectively distracting Danny, "but it will benefit her in the future."

Danny hesitated, then nodded. Net benefit. Right. He had to remember to look at that, take it into consideration.

Wait a second. Clockwork had grabbed him by his shirt. His _shirt,_ not his suit. He looked down. He was wearing his normal clothes. But he was definitely still in ghost form. His skin was glowing.

"It is your Deathday, Daniel. The Dead appear as they were in life on their Deathday. Don't worry. Here." He took Danny's left hand and turned it over, gloves whispering against Danny's bare skin.

Danny looked. There wasn't anything there. He pulled his hand away, rubbing his palm with his opposite thumb. It wasn't at all noticeable when he was in human form, but there was always a shadow of his death scar there. It was gone now. He wasn't sure how to feel about that.

"It's temporary," said Clockwork.

"Okay," said Danny, putting his hands in his pockets. He tried a smile. "Where are we going?"

Clockwork put his arm around Danny's shoulders. "You are ready?" he asked.

Danny started to nod, then something occurred to him. "Won't people, um. I can't fly around looking like this. Or I shouldn't. Um." He didn't want to disappoint Clockwork. He shouldn't force Clockwork to come up with the solution, either. "I could run in and get a hoodie, or something... Or, um, I guess I could just turn invisible," he finished, blushing. Why was he like this?

"That would be fine," said Clockwork. "But we can do this instead." He wrapped his cloak around Danny, pulling him close so that he was almost entirely under the purple cloth. Danny could hear the watches on Clockwork's wrist ticking, as well as the deeper tocking of the one in his chest.

"Oh," said Danny, feeling very shy. He hooked his fingers into Clockwork's belt, drawing himself just a little bit closer. "Okay."

"Shall we go?"

Danny nodded into Clockwork's side, and made himself weightless. Danny didn't know where they were going, so Clockwork would have to guide them.

Clockwork took off much more slowly than Danny would have expected. The differences between weightless and massless aside, he wasn't that big. But then Danny realized that Clockwork was just going slowly so that Danny wouldn't be startled. That was nice, if a little embarrassing. Not many adults were so careful of him, but the very last thing Danny wanted to do was inconvenience Clockwork. (Well, maybe not the last thing. There were a great number of other things that he wanted to do even less. Still.)

All the same, between Clockwork's calming aura, the rhythmic ticking of the clocks, and the peaceful aerial view of Amity Park, the barbed-wire anxiety that had been wound around and through Danny's chest all day began to loosen. Flying always helped him calm down. Why hadn't he thought about flying before?

It looked like Clockwork was bringing them to Sunshine Union Building. That made sense. The thirty-seven floor building was the tallest, and most striking, in Amity Park. That is, it would have been, if it had been completed. Some time in the seventies or eighties, before Danny had been born, anyway, a company came to town, promising to modernize Amity Park and bring it much needed wealth. They had filed building plans, made sales pitches, commissioned architects, displayed models, even brought out potential tenants. They just needed a few more investors, just a couple more people to put in down payments on a soon-to-be-built apartment. Then, when they had over a tenth of Amity Park buying into their scheme, the company vanished, never to be heard from again.

People had been unhappy about that, to say the least.

(A few older people still thought that it might be built.)

Normally, a scam like that wouldn't leave anything behind but broken dreams, debt, and perhaps any plans they filed to make their lies sound more convincing. But this was Amity Park. Normal really wasn't.

The Sunshine Union Building had never been constructed, but its ghost still stood tall over the city. Not that many people could see it. Actually, unless you were exceptionally sensitive to the paranormal, even by Amity Park standards, you could only see building if were higher than it was. Or just high. Some drugs could temporarily increase (or, just as often, decrease) a person's ability to perceive the city's weirdness. Then, even if you were higher than it, the lower stories seemed to fade out, until they were overtaken by the much more humble office building that was actually there. As the SU Building was the highest in Amity Park... Well. Other than the ghosts, very few people knew of its existence.

There were three ways to get into the ghost skyscraper. One was to go into the normal building, get on the elevator, and hold down two buttons, any two buttons, until the lights flickered and the music changed. Then the elevator would take you to a floor in the Sunshine Union Building. Another way was to take the 'under construction' staircase (The staircase was not, in fact, under construction. However, a bit of research showed that someone had been murdered there.), but that was tricky, because you could only get there if you skipped certain steps, and the building manager would try to stop you if she saw you sneaking into the stairwell. The third way was easier. If you could fly, that is. If you could come at the building from above, you could just land on the roof. It was easy to get into the rest of the building from there, seeing as the roof had been designed as a combination pool/lounge.

That seemed to be what Clockwork was angling for. Danny examined the building for anything out of the usual. Other that the building's existence, of course. He didn't find anything. Then again, he didn't really expect to. He didn't visit the SU often. The imaginary building had ghostly residents, but they had never caused any trouble, so Danny left them, and the building, alone.

They touched down on the roof. The pool was dry, its tiles chipped in patterns even Danny could recognize as arcane. There were no chairs, and glowing red-spotted ghost ivy grew across most other surfaces. Standing here, they were probably closer to the Ghost Zone than the material world.

Danny hoped that Clockwork wouldn't mind how close he was staying.

(Danny should probably be embarrassed by how he was acting. He was fifteen now, now five, and he was acting like a clingy toddler. What was wrong with him?)

"It is normal," said Clockwork, starting to lead Danny to the door.

"What?" said Danny, surprised.

"The way you are feeling," said Clockwork. "It is normal. You are a young ghost, and this is your first Deathday. You must remember, in many ways, you are only a year old." They stopped in front of the doors. "You are allowed to rely on an adult, now and again."

Danny opened his mouth, ready to argue that, no, he wasn't, not with how his half-life was, but then blushed green, as the deeper meaning of the words caught up with him. He snapped his mouth shut, and buried his face in Clockwork's side. "Thank you," he said, words muffled.

Clockwork patted Danny on the shoulder, and pushed open the door. Almost immediately, Danny's ghost sense went off, followed by his guard going up.

"Unuili," said the ghost that had been waiting for them. It was an old spirit, Danny could tell, and one that did not deign to take a humanoid form. It looked almost as if someone had taken a mostly dry and very beaten up paintbrush and swiped it vertically through the air, using reality as a canvas. Almost. It was three-dimensional, and it moved, shimmering and shifting, but that first impression remained. It continued to speak in Old High Spirit, a language that Danny still didn't have a good grasp on.

Clockwork responded in the same language.

The ghost flickered, the dim lights in the hall doing the same. Then it floated to one side and phased through the wall, staining the paint with vertical streaks.

"What did they want?" asked Danny, as they continued down the mostly empty hallway. The building was very haunted. The shadows moved strangely on contact with Clockwork and Danny's auras. Things scuttled within them. Danny ignored them. They were harmless, looking for the emotional high they'd get from a jump scare.

"To know why we were here."

"Why _are_ we here?"

"Because it is your Deathday," said Clockwork. "The end of your first year as a ghost. It deserves to be marked. Celebrated." Danny tensed at the last word. "A quiet one, of course," continued Clockwork, reassuring Danny.

"Right," said Danny. "Quiet. Small?"

"Yes," said Clockwork. "This isn't a day to be alone, but it also isn't a day to be overwhelmed by people."

Danny exhaled softly, just realizing that he had been holding his breath. "Thank you."

They got into an elevator, floating right through the doors, and Clockwork pushed one pulsating purple button. The lights went on and off, and other ghostly figures crowded in. The music was probably played by a musical saw, but could have been sung.

The floor they got off on was made of mirrors and glass. Every surface was silver and bright, painted neon with ghostly glows and blue by the outside sky.

A ghost, this one humanoid, in a neat suit, floated to them, reflections approaching and receding. "Your reservations are ready," she said, flame-blue hair dancing around her head. "This way, please."

Danny stayed glued to Clockwork, half-hidden beneath the older ghost's cloak, as the woman led them on. She glanced back.

"First time?" she asked. Her tone was sympathetic, but curiosity burned in the flat disks of her eyes.

Danny bit his lip, but nodded.

"I remember my first time," said the ghost. "It does get easier. Eventually you'll wake up on your Deathday, and it will just be another day."

They reached a mirrored door whose surface was textured with spirals. The woman opened the door, and stood aside to let Clockwork and Danny in. It was much darker in the room than it had been outside. Danny had to blink to let his eyes adjust.

The room was fairly large. There were pillows and beanbags lined up against the walls, and a low table in the middle of the room. There were lights on the ceiling, tiny little ones arranged in drifts and galaxy spirals. The far wall was a window, but it looked out over a foreign nightscape, not Amity Park.

Jazz was perched on one of the beanbags, and looked like she hadn't decided whether or not to be comfortable. Tucker was sprawled face down on the floor, having apparently fallen asleep. He really should stop pulling all-night video game sessions. Sam was standing up by the window, chewing on her nails, not a good sign. Danielle was sitting on the floor, eating peanuts.

"I will be back with your order in a moment," said the woman, closing the door and making the room even darker.

"Dani!" said Danny, throwing up his hands.

"Danny!" said Dani, throwing up hers.

Danny skirted Clockwork to tackle the now only-slightly-smaller half-ghost. "It's been forever!"

"It's been, like, two months," said Dani.

"Yeah, and you're not even a year old, so..." Danny trailed off. "I missed you. We've got to get you a phone or something."

"I can do that," said Sam, taking her thumbnail out of her mouth. "One of those pre-paid ones will work, right?"

"Uh, sure," said Dani.

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Clockwork settled down onto one of the cushions, winding his tail around it. Daniel was distracted now, though not as much as Clockwork would like. There was still a sort of _sharpness_ to his movements, a nervous energy that had him looking over his shoulder and checking the door.

Clockwork grimaced internally. There had been other options, but this had been the best place to commemorate the date. Long Now was unsuitable for a number of reason (all of which had one eye). Daniel's lair was out of the question, he hadn't found it yet, and two 'firsts' at once would have been a too stimulating. Far Frozen had been considered, but was, ultimately, too far from Amity Park to be a good choice, and not private enough. Just letting Daniel work through the day on his own... Clockwork hadn't even considered it. That would have been too dangerous.

He had too many examples of child ghosts hurting themselves on their first Deathday. Or subsequent ones.

Here, Daniel was in a safe, mostly secure place with no sharp edges. Even the table, being imaginary, like the rest of the building, could be retracted at a moment's notice, pulled flush with the floor, far away from any delicate body parts. The room was dim, and could be made darker. The food, when it came, was all finger food, nothing that required even a spoon, and the cups were plastic.

It seemed those measures wouldn't be necessary for some time, however. At the moment, Daniel and Danielle were gleefully stacking pillows on Tucker, having a contest to see who could balance the most pillows on him before he woke up, with Sam refereeing.

Jasmine, on the other hand, had sidled around to where Clockwork was sitting.

The redhead bit her lip. "Mister Clockwork," she started, voice soft, "thank you for helping Danny. I don't think that we could have even tracked him down, and he's been jumpy all week, but..." she trailed off, emanating nervousness. Clockwork waited, patiently. "Why was he hanging on to you like that?" Unspoken was the fact that Daniel had only known Clockwork for a few months, from Jasmine's perspective.

"Children often find the presence of an adult reassuring, do they not? It is the same for ghosts."

"Yes," said Jasmine, clearly struggling to put her objection into words.

"This isn't quite the place to discuss this," said Clockwork before she continued. "Nor, especially, is it the time."

Jasmine sighed. "You're right," she said, with a touch of frustration. She, like her brother, did not enjoy having her curiosity go unsated.

Clockwork nodded. Any minute now.

"Oh my gosh," said Danielle, muffling laughter with both hands. "We need a picture. We _need_ a picture. One of you guys has a camera, right? You've got to."

Daniel's smile was a tad more strained than his younger sister's, but it was still genuine. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't even grab my phone before I left, let alone a camera."

Jasmine shook her head as Danielle turned her huge eyes and quivering lower lip to her. "My phone doesn't do pictures. Cell phone cameras usually don't have good quality in the dark, anyway."

"Sam?" said Danielle, flipping backwards so that she was upside down.

"You still have that Polaroid, right?" said Daniel. There was a _very_ slight quaver in his voice.

"Y-yeah," said Sam. "One sec." She pulled the boxy antique out of her backpack. "The flash will probably wake him up, though."

Danielle giggled. "Do it!" she urged.

"First piece of blackmail, huh?" said Sam, smirking a little.

"Do it!" said Danielle again. Daniel looked a bit pale.

Sam lifted the camera to her eye, and snapped the picture. The flash strobed like lightning, illuminating every part of the room for less than a second. Tucker jumped, dislodging the meter-tall tower of pillows on his back. Danielle cheered. Daniel had frozen, not even breathing. As expected. Clockwork had hoped...

Well, it didn't matter now. This was only the first of what was to be many panic attacks. It was unavoidable. All that Clockwork could do was minimize the damage. He swept up to Danny, and put his arms around him.

"Breathe, Daniel," he said, calmly. "Breathe."

At the second reminder, Daniel sucked air in through his nose. "I- I can do that. I can do that. Right. I'm- I'm okay. I'm sorry, Sam, what were, what, um." He shook his head, and shivered closer to Clockwork. "What were you saying?"

"I didn't say anything," said Sam. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," said Danny.

It didn't take too terribly long for a sense of relative normalcy to resume. Clockwork had told Daniel's friends what might happen, that this, and worse, might, and he was glad for it. The best thing to do was simply keep Daniel from focusing on it, from focusing on things like _why_ a camera flash would startle him so badly, on _why_ he felt so on edge. Yes, those things could be explored later, after the hour of his death had passed.

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Clockwork was the only person awake in the room now. The hour of Daniel's death had come and gone, bringing with it an extended crying jag that had exhausted all the humans, and half-humans, in the room. It really had gone much better than he had hoped, especially after Sam had suggested the party games. Clockwork had somehow missed that tree of options, of outcomes, during his initial planning.

Enough time had passed that the sun was beginning to rise over the alien landscape outside the window, and Clockwork was idly wondering if he should bring the humans back to their homes. Ultimately, it didn't really matter whether they woke here, or in their own beds, but sometimes Clockwork felt the need to play up the 'mysterious' angle of his reputation. On the other hand, he didn't particularly want to disturb Daniel, who, while not sleeping _on_ him, was partially propped up by the same large cushion Clockwork rested on. Actually, any significant movement on Clockwork's part would, nine times out of ten, disturb all of the children, who had arranged themselves in what Clockwork was very tempted to call sleep dominoes.

Well, Clockwork was more than content to watch the sun rise. After all, he had all the time in the world.

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 **Reviews are always appreciated!**


	14. Chapter 14

**This was hard. Redemption fics are hard. Um. Personal headcanon: Dan didn't really destroy the world. He just terrorized the local area of the Ghost Zone and the vicinity of Amity Park, destroyed the Observants, and messed with Vlad, all of which were people, places, and things he blamed for the death of his family and friends. More on that later.**

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Redemption

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Ghosts like Clockwork slept infrequently.

Infrequently was not the same as never.

On occasion, Clockwork felt the desire to delve into his subconscious mind. At other times, when struggling with a decision, he found the human exhortation - sleep on it! - to be good advice. Very rarely, he simply needed rest, a break from the stresses of his unlife, from the Observants, from his all-encompassing responsibility for the time line.

So he slept, and rose refreshed.

In a pleasant mood, he drifted around Long Now, idly checking that everything was in place. It was unlikely that anything important had come up during his slumber, he hadn't foreseen anything, but it was prudent to check. Nothing was out of order, so he floated to the main room.

Daniel was asleep on the couch, curled slightly, back facing out to the room. Daniel was certainly not unwelcome, but Clockwork had not foreseen this. That was a sign of something being more deeply wrong. Concerned, Clockwork flew to Daniel's side. Normally, he would let the child get his sleep, Clockwork had just indulged himself in the same activity, after all, but Clockwork could stretch time for him, let him sleep for as long as he needed, and he needed to know what was wrong so that he could fix it.

"Daniel," he said, lightly touching the boy's shoulder. Daniel shifted slightly. "Daniel-"

Daniel twisted abruptly, his spine practically bending in half. His eyes were red, his lips bared over triangular teeth, and he lunged at Clockwork, hissing.

Clockwork woke up, staring at the ceiling of his bedroom. A dream. More specifically, a nightmare. It wasn't a new experience, but it was an unusual one. What did it mean? Should he ask Nocturne for clarification, or... No. He understood what he was trying to tell himself.

He rose to a vertical position, and left his room. He traveled downwards, not bothering with the stairs, but instead dropping straight down their wells. Clockwork's lair was much deeper than most visitors thought, and Clockwork tended to hide things down there. Dangerous things. Powerful things. Things he loved. Things he feared. Things he was ashamed of. Mistakes.

At the very bottom, was a great vault, guarded by a huge, thick door with many locks. This was a decoy. A few meters before the vault was a small, unassuming door. It was locked, yes, it was quite secure, but it was nowhere near as impressive as the vault. Beyond this door was a number of books. They were rare and dangerous books, yes, a few were even quite remarkable. Hidden beyond the books, however, hidden among the gears that made up the walls of the room, was a door that led to yet another room. This hidden room was small. It held only a single object, a white, silver, and green thermos.

"Is that you, old man?" came a tinny voice from inside the thermos. Then, more quietly, more angrily, "Of course it is, who else is going to come down here, idiot?"

Clockwork pretended he hadn't heard the second part. "Yes, it is me, Daniel," he said.

"It's Dan," said the other, harshly.

"I apologize," said Clockwork, smoothly, easily. In truth, this creature had just as much of Plasmius in him as he had of Daniel. It was inappropriate to refer to him by Daniel's name. At the same time, the Observants had said that he was responsible for Daniel. Both of them. All of them. He had interpreted that command to his advantage, taking Daniel as his child, but he had just as great a duty to Dan. More, in some ways. Depending on how one looked at the situation, Clockwork was partially to blame for his pain and current predicament. Of course, any reasonable person would say that Dan himself was mostly to blame. No one had forced him to systematically and persistently attack Amity Park and surrounding cities, or to attempt to ruin Daniel's life out of what Clockwork could only describe as pure envy. "Dan."

"What do you want?"

"I thought that you might enjoy some company," said Clockwork.

" _Your_ company, old meddler?" said Dan, sneer evident in his voice. "Hardly."

"All the same."

Silence. Then, "Why do you even care? You're the one who put me here."

"I'm not sure myself," admitted Clockwork.

"... You feel _guilty,_ don't you?" Dan laughed, harshly. "The great and powerful Clockwork feeling _guilty_ about little old me." He paused. "You should."

"Why is that?" asked Clockwork, genuinely curious.

"Because you could have stopped me from happening," hissed Dan.

"Perhaps," said Clockwork.

"What do you mean 'perhaps,' you-" What followed was, not, perhaps, the most creative stream of invective in the English language that Clockwork had ever heard, but it was certainly up there.

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Clockwork visited Dan again. He had been doing so more often, recently.

"What do you even want?" asked Dan, tiredly. "Why do you keep coming here?"

"To keep you company," said Clockwork.

"BS, old man."

Clockwork floated closer, examining the temporal wards that kept the thermos upright and intact. "Fine, I come because _I_ need company, and you're better than the Observants."

Dan scoffed. "That's one thing we can agree on."

"The _only_ thing?" asked Clockwork, mischievously. "I notice that you haven't tried to break out lately." The wards hadn't been tripped in several days, in fact. Not since before Clockwork's last visit.

"I'm saving up my strength," grumbled Dan. "Just you wait, old man, I'll break outta here in one big blast, and the first thing I'm gonna do is break your stupid neck."

"Is that so?" said Clockwork.

"Yeah."

"You do recall that I'm a ghost, don't you? Breaking my neck wouldn't do much."

"Shut up."

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Dan had been growing quieter and quieter with each visit. Clockwork didn't know what was going on in the ghost's head, but he did know what was happening to him physically. Dan was growing weaker. He had worn himself out with his early escape attempts, the thermos was not a particularly wholesome environment for a ghost, and, given the circumstances of his imprisonment, his Obsessions were likely collapsing in upon themselves. Dan had wanted revenge, but the thing that he wanted revenge for had never happened in this time line. Dan had wanted others to feel his pain, but he could cause no harm.

Clockwork wondered if some of the more benign Obsessions Dan had inherited from Daniel and Plasmius would begin to resurface, or if he would fade. Clockwork found that the prospect of Dan fading left him feeling... disappointed. Possibilities spiraled out from this point in time. Dan might fade. He might not. He might excavate one of his better traits, might be saved by a positive Obsession, he might somehow find an even worse one to cling to. He might change, he might stay the same. Many, many possibilities, but Clockwork believed that he could navigate them and reach a desirable result.

One of the many reasons that the Observants hated Clockwork so much was that when the time line stood to benefit a great deal, when many lives might be improved, he took risks. Risks they thought were untenable. Risks that Clockwork believed he could mitigate.

"Dan," said Clockwork, "let's make a deal."

"What kind of deal?" asked Dan, faint and suspicious.

"I suspect that you're bored here."

"No, I'm having the time of my afterlife," said Dan, flatly. "I'm thrilled all the time. There are so many interesting things to do here in this stupid soup container."

"I'm sure," said Clockwork, before falling silent.

"Well?" asked Dan, impatient. "What do you want?"

"I want to bring you upstairs."

"Why? What do you get out of it?"

"I'm getting tired of having to come down here every time I want to talk to you. This room is rather distant from where I spend most of my time."

Dan was quiet, turning the idea over in his head. "What's the catch?"

"I would need you to be quiet when other people are in Long Now," said Clockwork. "You can listen, but not speak. The Observants especially would not look kindly on you being in a less secure place."

Dan suggested that the Observants could go do something that was physically improbably for humans, and physically impossible for ghosts. Clockwork raised an eyebrow, even though he knew that Dan couldn't see him.

"I will let you think about it, in that case."

"Hey! Wait! Hold up, you stupid old geezer!"

"Yes?" asked Clockwork. "What is it, Dan?"

"I'll take your stupid deal!"

Clockwork smiled.

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"They're gone now," said Clockwork. Dan didn't respond. "Nothing to say? You are usually so vocal after Daniel's visits." It was true. One time Dan had crowed for hours, proud of the fact that he still gave Daniel nightmares.

"I forgot how hard it was," said Dan.

"Oh?" He wondered what had brought this on. Daniel had been injured, yes, but not badly. Perhaps it was how he had been injured? Or one of the other topics Daniel had brought up. Homework? The bully, Dashiel? The troubles with young Valerie? Vladimir's continued attempts to woo his mother? The fact that Daniel had fallen asleep mid-rant? Some combination thereof?

"I forgot... How could I forget?"

"Well, for you, you were half-ghost for under a year, if you are only counting from Daniel's side. It was not a very large part of your life."

"But it _was,_ " protested Dan. He sounded lost. "It was. It was _important._ "

"Was it? You left it behind awfully quickly."

Dan didn't answer.

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Dan started cursing out the Observants as soon as they left. Clockwork barely restrained himself from following suit. It wouldn't do to teach Dan even more swear words. Dan wasn't nearly as good at picking up languages as Daniel, but he had a talent for profanity.

A few hours later, Dan attempted to escape for the first time in months. It was a pathetic attempt, but still.

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"I'd play a better game if I could see the board," groused Dan.

Clockwork moved a pawn. "Pawn to B8. I'm afraid that I am not allowed to do that."

Dan swore. "B8?! When did it get there?" Then Clockwork's other comment caught up to him. "What do you mean, 'allowed?'"

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The possibilities spiraled out from the moment. Many were negative, but more of them were positive. It was so wonderful, when doing the right thing yielded good results.


	15. Chapter 15

**This is a really short one. Not sure if I'll continue it. I think it stands on its own. Thoughts?**

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Delivery

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"I need you to deliver a package for me," said Clockwork. "Doing so will be dangerous."

"Okay," said Danny, tearing his eyes away from a petrified Mr Lancer. (He had gotten detention again.) "What is it?"

Clockwork floated closer, and pulled a fat manilla folder from the depths of his robes, aging backwards as he did so. He stopped when he was about Danny's own age, which was a little weird. He then opened the folder, pulling out a battered notebook before handing both things to Danny.

Danny flipped, curious, through the notebook, eyes glazing over as they encountered incomprehensible math and equally incomprehensible handwriting. He paused, though, when he saw some tantalizingly familiar diagrams and drawings.

"While the package is important," said Clockwork, "what is more important is that you be seen delivering it."

"Which me?" asked Danny.

"This you."

Danny nodded. That made sense, seeing as the recipient of this, as stated on the outside of the manilla folder, was someone at the community college. Now, what he was really curious about was why. What was going to be the effect of this? And why would it be dangerous? But he wasn't sure he should ask. He didn't want to seem too nosy, or take up too much of Clockwork's time.

"The GIW will be there," said Clockwork. "They are attempting to recruit at Amity Park Community College, as it is one of the few institutions to offer degrees in paranormal studies."

"So, they could shoot at me?" asked Danny. He wasn't terribly concerned. The GIW were dangerous, not because they were skilled, but because they had government backing.

"They will shoot at you. They are testing a new series of machines, one of which is a highly sensitive ectoplasm detector."

"Oh," said Danny, feeling less sanguine. He was still going to do this, he didn't want to disappoint Clockwork. He just wanted to know why even more.

"Their attack on you will be witnessed by a large number of people. This will contribute to the dislike of the GIW in Amity Park, and several people who might have otherwise joined the GIW in various capacities will choose not to, which will, in turn, alleviate or eliminate several... issues, in the future."

"...Are you sure you can't read minds?"

"Positive," said Clockwork, grinning. But then his face smoothed out into it's normal, impassive mask. "You do not have to do this if you don't want to."

"I'm going to do it," said Danny, putting the notebook back into the folder and sticking the folder in his backpack. "Besides," he said, face drawing down into a slight frown, "the issues, they're my issues, aren't they? You're trying to make things easier for me. It would be stupid if I ignored that."

"Easier for you, yes," said Clockwork, smiling softly. "But also for a great number of other people. Do not underestimate your importance, Daniel."

"Aren't you supposed to be saying that the other way around?" asked Danny, only half joking. In truth, he would be more comfortable with being unimportant.

On the other hand, he rather liked that Clockwork thought he was important.

Clockwork just smiled and patted his shoulder. Then he vanished, and time stuttered back into motion.


	16. Chapter 16

**I don't know about the ending, but... YEET!**

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Tiny 4

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"Has anyone noticed that I'm gone yet?" asked Daniel. He was looking up at Clockwork with a hang dog expression. He had grown in the past few hours, doubling his height. Doubling an inch, however, gave you only two inches.

"You sister has," said Clockwork. "Your parents, however..." He smiled, a little sadly, at Daniel, and flicked his fingers, two small time portals appearing.

Daniel peered into them, curious. One showed his father tinkering with the Fenton Crammer. The other showed his mother, camped out in a tree, binoculars pressed to her face.

"I didn't know that Mom was going to do the ghost stake out thing," said Daniel. "At least Dad's working on the Crammer, right?"

"Yes," said Clockwork.

Daniel sighed, whole body sagging. Clockwork watched him with some concern. It was normal, under these circumstances, for Daniel to be sleeping and eating a lot. It was his body's way of trying to balance itself, of trying to regain lost mass, a reaction only partially alleviated by Clockwork bringing him into the Ghost Zone. It was still somewhat disturbing to Clockwork, and he could, at this point, only imagine how Daniel felt about it.

"Would you like some ice cream?" asked Clockwork, knowing the offer would bolster Daniel's spirits. Pun intended. There was something about cold core ghosts and frozen deserts. Most likely the temperature, but still.

Daniel looked up, first wide-eyed, then more narrowly, as if gauging whether or not Clockwork was serious. "Yes, please," he said.

Clockwork went to his freezer, aware that Daniel was avidly watching his every move. He opened it, removed a carton of chocolate brownie mint ice cream and produced a spoon from thin air, causing Daniel to squeak in mixed surprise and glee.

By the time Clockwork turned around, however, Daniel's face was bright red, and he had withdrawn into himself. Clockwork had predicted this response, another side effect of Daniel current shrunken state. He had already seriously debated with himself how to handle this particular mood swing.

Ignore, confront, comfort... These were all options, and none of them had a greatly differing apparent result, but Clockwork didn't care about appearances in this situation. He wanted Daniel to be happy. Unfortunately, for this short moment, appearances were all he had to gauge success by. Clockwork had to wonder how other parents could handle this kind of thing without foresight when he was only barely coping.

Ignore, Clockwork had decided, was definitely the wrong choice. It was what Daniel's natural parents would do, what they had done repeatedly. While Clockwork would not call the Fentons evil people, quite the opposite, really, and they were not the worst parents he had the displeasure of watching, they also were not the best. Even if it was only partial, their neglect had contributed to both Daniel's death and current situation.

No, ignoring Daniel's reaction was not the right choice. But being too blatant, too direct, when addressing it wouldn't be good either. Most creatures, Clockwork had learned, did not like to be confronted over things they had hoped to hide.

Clockwork placed the ice cream and the spoon on the counter, making sure to make a sound. Daniel was used to hearing the people near him breathe, used to the sounds of life. Clockwork didn't want to startle him with sudden closeness.

Gently but firmly, Clockwork began to stroke Daniel. As expected, Daniel leaned into the touch. This was fine, Clockwork hoped to say, this was normal. There was nothing wrong with Daniel's reactions.

"Ice cream," reminded Danny after a minute.

Clockwork smiled, opened the carton, and removed a single spoonful, setting the spoon on the counter next to an excited Daniel.

"Thank you," said Daniel, eyeing the relatively enormous amount of ice cream with something akin to reverence. Clockwork set a doll sized spoon on the counter in between Daniel and the ice cream before Daniel tried to eat it without (appropriately-sized) utensils. Daniel's eyes widened even more (Perhaps his eyes were growing faster than the rest of his body?). "Where are you getting all those spoons from?" he asked. "Do you have them up your sleeve?"

"That's a secret," teased Clockwork. "Eat your ice cream."

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In retrospect, Danny should have known better than to eat all that ice cream. For one, he was now so full he was bloated, something both rare and uncomfortable. For another he was incredibly sticky. Horribly sticky. Disgustingly sticky. And he smelled like warm ice cream.

He flopped down on the counter in despair. He was such a mess.

"I think I'm too small for my emotions right now," he said.

"An apt description," said Clockwork. "That is very nearly what is occurring."

Danny groaned, not in the mood for a lesson. "I'm sticky," he complained to the counter.

"Would you like a bath?" asked Clockwork.

Danny rolled over. "Yes," he said. "Why do you have a bath?"

"Sometimes I get sticky, too," said Clockwork, moving to pick Danny up.

"No," said Danny. "I'll make you sticky."

"As I said, that happens sometimes. I can always wash my gloves."

"Okay," said Danny after a moment of thought.

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Clockwork's bathroom (this one, anyway, Danny didn't doubt that he had more) was lavish. Huge, modern, and done in shades of purple and green. There was a shower, a tub, a hot tub, fluffy towels, large sinks. There was also a very tiny, Danny-sized, bathtub set on the tiled counter between the sinks. Danny was surprised, even though he shouldn't have been. Clockwork had had that tiny bed ready to go, after all.

"Thank you," he whispered, a little in awe. Even if Danny had been able to see the future, he would never be able to plan like this.

"It's nothing, Daniel," said Clockwork, putting him on the counter, then drifting backwards. "I will give you your privacy."

"Okay," said Danny, a little uncertainly. He wasn't sure how he felt being left alone in what felt like a very large, very unfamiliar place. On the other hand asking Clockwork to stay while he was _taking a bath..._ Yeah. No. Not something that was going to happen. Ever. That would be just way too weird.

He turned on the water, and watched, fascinated, as it dripped into the bathtub. The physics of it were a bit odd at this scale. The water came out drip by drop, filling the tub with rippling, jiggling splashes. Danny could clearly see the skin formed by surface tension. It was weird. When the tub was as full as Danny wanted, the water bulged upwards, curving.

Belatedly, he realized that he had to strip before he could get into the tub. He removed his clothes, hurrying so that the water's temperature wouldn't change much. He grimaced at the disorderly pile he left on the... the counter, not the floor, he reminded himself. Clockwork was giving him so much help, even giving him a new set of clothes, and Danny wasn't even cleaning up after himself properly.

Well, he'd do it after he came out.

He was surprised at how hard he had to push down on the water to get into it. It wasn't _difficult_ to break the surface, but it wasn't as easy as it usually was. He had to put his weight on his foot to penetrate the skin. There was definitely resistance.

He wondered if he might be able to mimic a water skipper if circumstances were slightly different.

Wary of the surface tension, and not knowing how difficult it was to break from below, Danny kept his head above water as he cleaned himself. The sliver of soap he used actually lessened the surface tension by quite a bit. He supposed that soap was a surfactant, but experiencing it at this scale was something else.

When he got out of the tub, he started drying quickly. Between the air temperature and how little water there actually was, evaporation got him half-dry even before he rolled around of one of Clockwork's very soft, very fluffy towels. Then he got dressed and folded up his old clothes (in retrospect, they were not as sticky as he had thought).

He sat down on the towel.

"I am coming in now," came Clockwork's voice from just outside the room.

"Okay," called Danny.

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"I'm clean now," said Danny, happily curled in Clockwork's hands. He thought that he might have grown a couple more inches since before his bath. That thought made him happy, too. He really wanted to go home and see for himself that everything and everyone was okay.

Still, he knew that Clockwork wouldn't let anything too bad happen while he was away. Or, at least, the older ghost would already be trying to ease him into the idea that something bad could happen, rather than assuring him that everything would be fine. It would probably be rude, at this point, to ask Clockwork when he could go home. Again.

And for some reason, Clockwork seemed to enjoy having Danny around. That was nice. Besides his parents, whom Danny tended to avoid for other reasons, most adults didn't.

"Would you like to play a game?" asked Clockwork, suddenly. "Not Senet. Perhaps a simpler, or more modern one? One we can complete without fearing interruption."

"Yes," said Danny. "Um, not cards. They wouldn't fit in my hands."

"Hm. No. You are quite correct."

"Not something with a big board," continued Danny. "Maybe... Yahtzee?"


	17. Chapter 17

**Hello! It's been a while! Thank you very much for your reviews. They give me life.**

 **I would like to remind anyone reading that I will accept requests for this fic.**

 **This fic was inspired partially by posts about Danny and the Opportunity rover. If only we could all be as successful in our endeavors as Opportunity was in her's. I plan to have this be a series (like Tiny).**

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Out There 1

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Danny mumbled angrily to himself in Latin as he looped gauze around his arm. Sam and Tucker were both out of town on family vacations for the long weekend, and the ghosts were being mean about it. Stupid Skulker. Stupid Technus. Stupid giant ghost pelican.

The gauze slipped through his fingers. He scowled at it. Normally, Danny would have asked Jazz for help, but his parents were testing a new anti-ghost security system. He could avoid it when he was human, his ectosignature when human fell below the threshold for action, but he didn't want to turn human before he fixed this. He needed more time to heal.

Also, his parents would definitely notice the gushing blood if he went home without stopping it. They were oblivious, but not that oblivious.

Right now, he was perched in a tree several streets away from FentonWorks, his ghostly tail wrapped securely around the branch beneath him, trying, and failing, to tend to his injuries one-handed. He had almost managed to take care of the gash on his arm, but he kept dropping the gauze.

Danny gasped, then exhaled a plume of vapour. He looked up eagerly. This was an ectosignature he recognized. A friend.

"Grandfather?"

"I am here," said Clockwork.

Danny yelped and nearly fell of the branch. Then he turned, beaming, and hugged the older ghost. "Why are you here?" he asked. "How are you? What's happening?"

"A number of reasons," said Clockwork, calmly. "I am well, thank you. May I see your arm?"

"Oh!" said Danny. "Um, sure. You don't have to-"

"Perhaps not," said Clockwork, fixing Danny's sloppy bandages. "But I want to." He tied off the ends of the bandage with a neat knot, and patted Danny on the shoulder.

The old ghost then waited patiently while Danny shrugged back into the top half of his suit, and pulled the zipper up to the top of his collar before retrieving his gloves from where they had been tucked into his belt.

"So..." said Danny. "What's up?"

"There is a paradox that I have to solve in person," said Clockwork. "I would like you to come with me, but you do not have to if you do not want to."

"I want to," said Danny.

Clockwork smiled, and shifted into his younger form. "Nephthys has also asked to borrow you when we are done."

"Okay," said Danny. "Sure." He didn't know Nephthys well, but his didn't dislike her. "Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise," said Clockwork, "but I think you'll enjoy it." He paused. "There is one thing I need to tell you," he said, warning in his voice. "You must not return to human form while we are there. You must remain as a ghost. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Danny, after a moment of processing. He wondered where they could be going. Underwater, perhaps? Or maybe a settlement of ghosts that really didn't like hybrids or humans? In either case, it would be interesting. He just had to be careful. "Do you know what Lady Nephthys wants me for?"

"She didn't say. I do believe that she's enjoys being mysterious nearly as much as I do."

Danny uncurled his tail from the branch, reforming his legs to kick at the air.

"I don't think anyone could enjoy being mysterious as much as you do," he said. "When are we going?"

Clockwork smiled, rippling, shifting into his broad-shouldered middle-aged form. "Now would best," he said, floating up off the branch and out of the tree.

"That's good for me," said Danny, following.

Once they were quite some distance above Amity Park, far enough up for there to be a slight chill in the air, Clockwork came to a stop, Danny at his shoulder. Clockwork tucked himself behind Danny, wrapping his cloak partially around Danny. Danny giggled.

"Ready?" asked Clockwork, playfully.

"Ready," said Danny, tilting his head back to smile up at Clockwork.

With a sweep of a his staff, Clockwork opened one of his blue portals, and the two of them passed through.

It took Danny several minutes to process what he was seeing and feeling.

He wasn't breathing. More accurately, he couldn't breathe. His breath had escaped him with a _whoosh_ the moment they had come through the portal. Still, Danny had gone long periods of time without breathing when he was Phantom. Not breathing when he was a ghost was normal.

A bit odder was the odd, fizzy sensation on the surface of his skin. It felt a little like there were bubbles all over the surface of his skin, like he had been carbonated, or like he had jumped into a pool just right. Or like when he had gone into space to fight Technus.

Ah.

That made what he was seeing make a _lot_ more sense.

A pockmarked, lumpy, dark gray expanse stretched out beneath a pitch sky. Dozens of stars stared down, unblinking. Over the horizon hung a fingernail thin- no, razor thin- blue-white sliver, a delicate curve. That was the Earth. If he wasn't breathless already...

He looked up at Clockwork, wide-eyed. Clockwork smiled down indulgently, and ruffled his hair.

A slow smile crept across Danny's face in answer. This was the Moon. He was on the _Moon._

Clockwork glided away, and Danny remembered that Clockwork had brought them here so that he could work on a paradox. Danny stuck close to him. As much as he wanted to explore, as much as he wanted to flit from place to place and shove Moon rocks _(Moon_ rocks) into his pockets, he was a little nervous.

They reached a spot in the center of a small crater where there was... something. Whatever it was played on the edges of Danny's senses, and he hung back even as Clockwork flew closer. Clockwork glanced back, and made a gesture Danny interpreted as 'entertain yourself.'

Danny blinked, then smiled and nodded. If Clockwork didn't think he'd get into trouble, he would probably be fine, and he really, really wanted to look around.

He wanted to get some Moon rocks.


	18. Chapter 18

**Hello! It's been a while since I did one of these. For most of these, I say that they're in the same timeline as Mortified, but for this one, I'm going to say it isn't. I don't know how I want summoning to work in that, or even if I want summoning in it, so this is kind of a test drive of the concept.**

 **Anne Camp: He does have places for things like that, but he often just leaves them in the GZ, since time there is a bit weird to begin with.**

 **Sumi-Sprite: Thank you, that's my goal. I want their relationship to be at the same level it is in Mortified.**

 **Bigbucks: Thank you for the idea! I just might ddo that. :)**

 **Thank you for reviewing!**

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Summons

Danny froze, staring. Clockwork looked frazzled. Danny had seen the older ghost displaying a number of emotional states at this point, from ebullient to worried, but he had never seen frazzled. More to the point, Clockwork was rapidly, and randomly, flipping through his youngest handful of forms. Infant, teenager, preteen, toddler, infant again, twentysomething, Danny's age, elementary schooler...

He also kept disappearing, flickering in and out like a broken lightbulb. Ghosts could do that, of course. Danny did that rather frequently, actually. But Clockwork didn't. Not like this.

"Grandfather?" asked Danny, intensely worried.

Clockwork whirled. Had he not..? Had he not known Danny was there?

Clockwork rushed across the room, phasing (Hiw? They were in the Ghost Zone.) through his lab equipment. He grabbed Danny by the shoulders.

"I need your help," he said. Then he winked out of existence.

Danny gasped, eyes going wide. Clockwork hadn't just turned invisible, he was gone.

Before Danny could do anything about that rather disturbing revelation, Clockwork was back.

"Are you sick?" said Danny, blurting the first question that came to mind.

"What? No, I-" Gone. Then back again. "Yes. What was the ques-" Clockwork vanished. This time he was gone long enough that Danny started trying to make a list of everything that could possibly do this to Clockwork and how he could stop it.

Then he was back, but in a slightly different place. He looked furious.

"I'm being summoned," said Clockwork, speaking so quickly his words blurred together. "I thought I had destroyed all copies of that ritual but-" He was gone again. "- fix it myself, but they keep doing it, I can't even keep my thoughts straight. Can barely keep time straight-" Gone. "-corresponding with my personal timeline-" Nothing. "-trying to coerce me. My future self should be able to fix it, but seems to think that it's too funny." Clockwork paused, bracing himself. Then he frowned. "Did I get the timi-" He vanished.

Danny took a deep breath. He had a partial explanation, now. He didn't know what to do with it, but he had it. Clockwork would most likely be back in a few minutes, and of his future self thought it was funny, nothing too bad could happen.

He fidgeted. Clockwork had asked for his help, and he was surrounded by Clockwork's time-viewing equipment. But without more information, he didn't know what to do with it. He didn't know where, when, or what the root cause of this was. If he did something, he might make things worse.

The clocks of Long Now ticked on and on, layered on themselves. Cautiously, half-convinced that he would be scolded, he approached the piece of equipment Clockwork had been working on, a bizarre sculpture of colored lenses and curved mirrors.

Clockwork rematerialized between Danny and the item, causing Danny to squeak and jump in surprise.

"Not that," said Clockwork. "There's a loophole in the ritual. I can send my apprentice instead of going myself."

"So, you want me to-?"

"Yes. That should give me long enough to fix this."

"Um, sure," said Danny. Then, with more confidence, "Yes, of course." He was Clockwork's apprentice? He didn't know what that entailed, but it sounded nice.

"It should be safe," said Clockwork. His eyes narrowed. "But make them regret this."

Danny's mouth curled up into a wicked grin at the permission for mischief. "Okay!"

Clockwork pulled Danny into a hug, then Danny felt a strange tug on his core. Symbols and sensations briefly impressed themselves into Danny's mind. The world seemed to twist inside out and kaleidoscope, before turning into a reverse funnel and dropping Danny into normal space.

Mostly normal space. Danny could still feel a connection, a narrow tube, that lead back to Long Now. If he really tried, he could probably shove himself back into it. He wondered if that was what Clockwork had been doing, in which case his agitation made sense.

"Ha!" shouted a nearby voice triumphantly. "I got him this time!"

Danny blinked, and surveyed his surroundings. It looked like he was in someone's basement, or garage, but he couldn't tell which one, because the walls, and several suspiciously shelf-shaped items, had been covered with black fabric. The floor, however, was concrete, bare except for summoning paraphernalia, and it sloped down to a drain on one side of the room.

Danny scanned said summoning paraphernalia quickly. Chalk, salt, symbols, candles, several cheap broken watches, a suspicious pile of ash, a still flaming pile of herbs, and a large book. With the possible exceptions of the herbs and the book, none of these were real threats to Danny. He, Sam, and Tucker had tested a number of traditional ghost remedies on Danny. Salt rarely worked even on full ghosts.

Finally, Danny turned his attention to the summoners. There were two boys and two girls, and three of them looked like college students. More precisely, modern college students. This surprised Danny somewhat. He had more than half expected to be summoned to the far future or distant past. Or to be summoned by ghosts, or even aliens.

(Danny knew, and, more unusually, understood, that the Earth wasn't the only thing in the universe, although it was, from several valid perspectives, the center thereof.)

One of the boys was tall, blond, and just slightly gangly. He was clearly out of high school, but he had a distinctly unfinished look. He wasn't filled in yet. The other boy was quite different. He was round, probably overweight, and had skin the same color brown as the veneer on some of the desks at Casper High.

Of the girls, the older one, was situated between those two extremes in terms of overall appearance, with the addition of looking like the kind of person who liked to go jogging. The other girl looked like she was at least five years younger, and could have been the first boy's sister. In fact, she probably was.

They were all wearing 'robes.' It looked like they had all been cut out of sheets of black felt.

Danny felt the corners of his mouth twitch up. This was what had been giving Clockwork such a hard time? True, Danny knew better than most how something apparently innocuous could ruin your day, but he didn't have the willpower to resist giving Clockwork grief over this. Just a little.

The older girl frowned. "I don't know, Jonah. Doesn't he look a little different than before?"

Danny just tilted his head. It would be better, he decided, to just listen for the moment. To see what they knew, and how they acted. Then he would decide what to do. If they were just messing around out of boredom and just let him go (unlikely considering the state Clockwork had been in), he probably wouldn't do much of anything. If, on the other hand, they tried to bargain with him, or force him to do something... Well. Clockwork had told him to make them regret this.

"He looked like a lot of different things before," said the blond, defensively, clutching the book to his chest. "He's the Master of Time. He can change his age to whatever he wants. That's what the book says."

The younger girl glared at Danny, lower lip held between her teeth. "Yeah, but he does look more different."

The blond scowled. "Stop taking Janet's side."

"Well, when your side makes sense, maybe I will."

"'Makes sense?' Hello? I just summoned an eldritch abomination here. An old and nameless god!"

Okay, that was kind of hurtful. The eldritch abomination category might have fit Danny like a glove, but they didn't need to be mean about it. Also, both he and Clockwork had names.

"I think they have a point, actually," the other boy said, slowly. "Before he was more purple."

Jonah rolled his eyes. "So what? He's a shapeshifter. It doesn't matter. He's probably trying to trick us, or something. Maybe he thinks that Angela will let him out."

The younger girl turned to face him, bafflement clear on her face. "Why would I let him out?"

"Well, he looks like he's about your age, doesn't he?"

"You're joking. Do you think I've never seen a horror movie?"

"No, but you do read a lot of those paranormal romances."

"Hey," said the older girl (Janet?). "Can we focus here? We got a little carried away when we saw the thing was working, but what do we do with him now that we have him? He's kinda creeping me out, just floating there like that."

"Didn't you hear anything I said before we started?" asked Jonah, aghast.

"Yeah, but I didn't think it would work. I got a little distracted by it working."

"You just weren't paying attention the first time, were you?" accused Jonah.

"Not really, no."

"Well, Janet," said Jonah, crossing his arms and tipping his head back, "We're going to become rich and famous beyond our wildest dreams."

"Uh, Jonah?" said the other boy. "I don't want to be famous. Just rich."

"Whatever. You can do that instead, if you want." Jonah returned his attention to Danny. "Hey, you."

Danny made a show of ignoring him.

"Master of Time. Hey. I'm talking to you."

Danny still didn't acknowledge him, instead choosing to examine his gloves. How could he maximize chaos and his own amusement?

"I'm sorry, my brain just shorted out from all the stupid," said Janet, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You summoned this... entity, for a get-rich-quick scheme? When you, I don't know, could ask for the answers to the questions of the universe?"

"What good are those? Hey! What are the winning lottery numbers for tomorrow?"

There was a soft tug on his core, an urge to answer. Ah. He had been wondering how that would work. There wasn't a lot of power behind it, however, not like the summoning itself. Danny wouldn't have to put a lot of effort into resisting it. If he wanted to resist it. He didn't, at this point, and he didn't want them to do anything to make it stronger. Considering how distressed Clockwork had been, that was probably an option.

"I don't know," said Danny.

Silence.

"What do you mean, you don't know? You're supposed to know everything! You're the Master of Time!"

"I mean," said Danny, channeling Clockwork, "I don't know. I have better things to do than memorize lottery numbers. Do you have any idea how many lotteries there are? I'm not the Master of Useless Minutiae."

"Stocks, then. Which ones will be a good investment?"

"I don't think stocks will be a good investment."

Jonah pursed his lips. "Why?"

"Well, I don't see your society returning to the day of the pillory and stockade any time soon."

"Not those kinds of stocks!"

"Oh, did you mean socks? Socks are always a good investment, provided you have feet."

"I meant the stock market! The stock market."

"Okay."

"You understand?"

"Sure."

Jonah tapped his foot impatiently. "Well? What do you think?"

"I think that it never ceases to amaze me how often groups of people pick their dumbest member to be the leader."

The leader, Jonah, went very pale. Angela snickered slightly.

Danny turned to Angela. Time for chaos. "You seem reasonably intelligent, Angela. Why aren't you in charge?"

"Hey!" said Jonah. "Don't you talk to her!"

"Why not? She summoned me, too." His eyes drifted to Janet, very deliberately skimming over the second boy. "What about you, then, Janet? You had some questions."

"What about me?" complained the boy.

"Shut up for a sec, Matt, I'm thinking," said Janet. Oops. Maybe Danny had miscalculated.

Janet's gaze turned shrewd. "Who are you?" she asked.

He'd been expecting that, sooner or later. He'd been hoping for later, though. Oh, well. It wasn't as if he had a whole lot of experience with this kind of thing.

This time, Danny decided to fight the tug on his core. "You tell me. You're the ones who sumoned me. You should know."

Janet's eyes went narrower. "Who are you?" she repeated. The summoners were united again in curiosity.

Time to straight up lie. "I'm the Master of Time," he said, imperiously.

The candles flared and burned red.

"You're not the Master of Time?" asked Jonah incredulously. "Then who are you?"

So they had a set up to detect lies. Interesting. He wouldn't have thought they'd go through the trouble. "If you must know, I'm his apprentice. I answer his calls sometimes, run errands, you know."

Angela started laughing. "Oh my god, we got the eldritch abomination's gofer intern."

"But you still know stuff," said Janet.

"Depends on which stuff you want to know about."

Meanwhile, Jonah was flipping through the large book. Danny didn't like the look of that.

"How will the universe end?"

"Wow, there are so many possibilities for that one. Want me to start with-"

"Hah! Got it!" interrupted Jonah. "We can still get some good out of this!"

"Really?" asked Matt.

"Jonah, I'm trying to get some information here."

"Please. It isn't as if knowing how the universe will end will do you any good. I'd only done the candles, 'cause I thought we could get some future knowledge, but this guy is going to be useless for that, so..."

"I am right here," said Danny, disgruntled.

"We can force him to do whatever we want, if we have a big enough sacrifice... wait. Crap. Matt, how attached are you to your hamster?"

"Dude," said Danny, "that's gross. I don't want that."

"I'm not giving you Captain Rogers."

"Or we could make a deal, I guess." He looked up at Danny. "What do you want?"

"Depends. What do you want?" Danny wasn't sure how he felt about a 'deal.' Considering the general set up, it was sure to be coercive. A thought crossed his mind, and he smiled, slyly. "And is that what all of you want? I'm not sure you'll have enough for more than one deal."

This managed to get them bickering again, and Danny took the time to anticipate what they'd ask him to do and think up ways to ruin it. Rob a bank? Do their chores? Get revenge? Do their homework? Search for buried treasure? Overshadow people? Sneak them into movies? Something he actually couldn't do, like change their appearances?

The argument came to an end when Angela yanked the book out of Jonah's hands. She flipped it over and glared at it, as if she could intimidate answers out of it. Apparently, she could do that, because a minute later she looked up, turning her glare to Jonah.

"You're an idiot," she said. "Wait here." She shoved the book back at Jonah, and pushed past the black curtain, leaving only Danny and the three older summoners. Danny heard her going up a set of stairs, and the sound of a door opening and closing.

"What's she doing?" asked Matt.

"I don't know," said Jonah, throwing up his free hand.

Janet cleared her throat. "If you don't mind, I was asking some questions?"

"I do mind, actually," said Danny.

Janet scowled, then smiled. "Too bad. First off, what's the meaning of life?"

"How am I supposed to know that? You realize I'm a ghost, don't you?"

"A ghost?"

"Yeah."

"As in, a dead person, ghost?"

"That's the idea."

Janet and Matt turned to glare at Jonah. "You didn't say we were going to be summoning a ghost."

"I don't want to be a necromancer!"

"We weren't! We were supposed to get the Master of Time! Not this guy."

"Wait," said Janet. "Does that mean there's an afterlife?"

"Yeah, at lest one. I don't think you'll get in, though." Danny wasn't sure he liked being called 'this guy' in that tone of voice. As for Matt not wanting to be a necromancer, he should have thought of that before putting on black robes anddoing a summoning ritual in a basement.

"Why not?" asked Janet.

"Honestly, all of you are too boring. Seriously. You tried to summon my master for lottery numbers."

A door opened. "Got it!" shouted Angela. There was the sound of her coming down stairs, and then she pushed through the curtain. She was holding a large box.

"You've got what?"

"A sacrifice."

"You don't have a pet."

"I don't need one. The sacrifice doesn't have to be a living thing. It just has to have value. Preferably emotional, personal, or spiritual value. It's written down in there pretty clearly. You just didn't want to lose any of your stuff."

Jonah blushed as his friends glared at him. Angela, meanwhile, was setting up her things (stuffed animals, toys, old clothes, a picture, beads, a flash drive, a red 'second place' ribbon) around the salt circle. Danny wasn't liking the look of this. He wasn't liking the feel of this. With every trinket added, the pressure in his core increased, though it wasn't pulling him in any specific direction. Yet.

The 'hole' back to Long Now was looking more and more inviting.

"You guys want to add anything?" asked Angela.

Matt and Janet looked at each other. Janet shrugged, pulled a wallet from beneath her robes, and removed a wad of fortune cookie slips.

"You're really weird, sometimes, you know," said Jonah.

"You're the one with an extradimensional entity in his basement. Matt?"

"I don't carry anything like that with me," protested the boy.

"Cool. That means that Janet and I get to decide what he has to do." The younger girl grabbed the older by the arm, and pulled her into a corner.

"Hey," said Danny, to the remaining two summoners, "are you really going to let them do that? You summoned me too, after all. You should get some say."

"He's right!" declared Jonah, marching off. Matt followed quickly after.

Danny could, of course, still hear them, but he only partly paid attention. He was more focused on the feeling the items laid around the circle were giving him. They were pressuring him, yes, but they were also giving off a feeling of power. Somehow, he could tell that as soon as the four summoners made their demands, that power would be his, even though it would bind him more thoroughly. He wasn't sure how. He would have to ask Clockwork about the mechanics of all this once he got back.

This insight did, however, explain why some ghosts purposefully let themselves be summoned.

By the time the summoners finished arguing, the candles had almost burnt down. Danny knew exactly what they were going to ask for, and had at least an idea of how to twist it for his (and Clockwork's) amusement and retribution. And the education of these four idiots, who thought it would be fun to try and randomly summon one of the Ancient Masters, of course. Goodness, what if they had gotten Vortex? Or Undergrowth? No, they had to be given an intervention right now, before they became a cautionary tale for others.

"By the power of this sacrifice we bind you to three tasks," said Jonah, formally, his voice purposefully held deep.

"Uh huh," said Danny, now floating upside-down.

"First, you may not harm us, or cause us to be harmed."

"Whatever," said Danny. He wasn't intending to do that, anyway, and there was a loophole in that phrasing a mile wide.

"Second," intoned Jonah, "you must protect us from harm."

"Sure," said Danny. Again, there was a giant loophole there. They should have just tried to use the Three Laws of Robotics, even if the book said there wouldn't be enough power for something so sweeping. Danny would have really liked to look at that book, and see if really did have the Three Laws of Robotics mentioned in there (not impossible, because it was about how to summon a time-travrling ghost), or if it just said something about not doing an 'I wish for more wishes' type of thing.

"Third," here came the one that Danny could really mess with, "you must make it so that everyone we meet likes us."

"Okay, fine."

"By the power of this sacrifice we bind you to these tasks for a year and a day, unless we realease you."

The others chimed in with something that sounded Latin, but was straight gibberish, as far as Danny could tell. A wind picked up. The candles flared, then went out. The herbs and salt were blown away. The lines of chalk faded and smudged. The sacrifices disolved into mist (Danny knew, somehow, that they hadn't been destroyed. They were just somewhere else.). The influx of power was dizzying, intoxicating, not to mention the intensely distressing yank on his core. Danny pushed himself out of visibility, not wanting the summoners to see how he was affected, and sat on the floor, intentionally grounding himself.

Feeling steady, stable, Danny opened his eyes. He had missed a good chunk of the conversation, but that didn't matter.

"... going home," said Janet. "We can test if it works later. It's late and I'm tired."

Danny grinned, and began to split himself into duplicates. Oh, it had worked, all right. Just not in the way they wanted.

"Something is wrong," said Janet. She looked very frazzled, almost as badly as Clockwork had been, not at all like she had before. "I haven't been able to talk to anyone but you three morons for three days. Every time I try, they either get this weird look on their faces and run away, or I'm suddenly somewhere else."

"Me too," said Matt, "and every time I try to use the phone, my call gets dropped."

"My car keys are gone," said Jonah, "and so is every knife in the house."

"I think all the furniture has been moved a couple inches," said Angela, "and someone's been eating our food."

"Those aren't the only things missing," said Janet.

Danny and his seven duplicates giggled silently. Seeing their reactions to his mischief had been surprisingly amusing.

There was a serious aspect to this as well, however. Danny was sure that Clockwork would bring him back to his own time, no matter how long he spent here, but he didn't want to be here for a whole year. Hopefully, these four would do the right thing and release him.

"It's definitely him, isn't it?" said Matt.

"That's a safe bet," said Angela.

"I knew this was a bad idea," complained Jonah. He was rewarded with three glares. "What?"

Janet shook her head. "Can we tell him to knock it off, or edit our orders, or something?"

"Not that I found in the book," said Angela.

"You could always just release me, you know," said Danny, one of him returning to visibility. He was rewarded with several yelps. "Then I wouldn't have to do this."

"What do you mean," said Janet, recovering first, "that you 'have' to do this?"

"I'm just following your instructions," said Danny, with practiced innocence.

"We didn't tell you to isolate and chase people away from us," said Matt.

"You said to make sure that everyone you met likes you. You probably haven't noticed, but you aren't very likeable people, and I don't do mind control."

Angela frowned. "Then how are you keeping them away?"

"That's body control and selective amnesia. Completely different."

"We didn't say for you to take our stuff," said Jonah. "I want my car keys back."

"But car keys and knives are so dangerous. You could get hurt, and you said not to let that happen. That food was so unhealthy, too. It was mostly candy. Really, it's for the best that it's gone."

"And the furniture?" prompted Janet.

"Oh. That. Okay, that was just me. But it was funny, wasn't it?"

"No," said Janet, severely. "Ot isn't. Now, knock it off."

"Nope," said Danny, bobbing mid air with barely contained laughter.

Angela stamped her foot. "This isn't what we wanted."

"Well, no duh. Believe it or not, this wasn't on the top of the to-do list for me or my Master." Danny flipped upside down. "Even if you couldn't forgo the whole forced servitude thing, you could have asked if I could do what you wanted. But nooooooo, apparently you think all mysterious spirits are genies, or something, and you know what? Even genies don't like this stuff. Actually, you're lucky you didn't get a genie, cause they'd really mess with you. They have more experience. Doubly lucky for you," said Danny, taking a deep breath, "you have a way out. Release me, and I'll leave you all alone."

"No way," said Jonah. "Those orders are the only thing keeping you from trying to kill us! I know! I've watched those movies!"

"And you did this, anyway?" said Danny, flatly. He shook his head. "I have no intention of hurting you, let alone killing you. But if you don't belive me, we can make a deal. Those are covered in your book, aren't they?" Danny knew they were. He had managed to skim the book over the last couple of days.

"Yes," said Jonah, suspiciously.

"Great," said Danny. "Here's the deal. You release me, and I'll leave you in peace, so you can get back to your normal lives. Sound fair? If not, I can offer again in, oh, a week is a good time. Don't you think?"

They didn't have any choice, when it came down to it.

"We'll take your deal," said Janet. "Angela, what do we need to do?"

"We just have to say that we'll take the deal, and that we release him from his bonds," said Angela. "I'll take your deal," she said, directly, "and I release you from your bonds. Now you do it."

Matt and Janet repeated the words, and Danny felt a small amount of relief. Jonah, however, remained stubbornly silent.

"Come on, Jonah," said Angela. "I don't want to spend a whole year like this. I want to talk to my friends."

"And if I can't talk to anyone, I'll fail my classes!" said Matt. "I've got group projects."

"I'd rather fail than be killed!" protested Jonah. He picked the book up from where it sat between them, and started flipping through it. "There's got to be some kind of a solution in here."

"You know, society as a whole is pretty dangerous. I know a great place in the Canadian north, just south of the arctic circle, you know. No humans for miles and miles... I could bring you four there."

Jonah blanched. "Fine," he hissed. "I release you from your bonds. Happy?"

Danny beamed as his core was freed. "Very."

"Jonah, you didn't take the deal," whispered Angela.

Danny laughed, and pulled the book from Jonah's hands before disappearing. Then he dismissed his duplicates and flew up through the roof into the clear sky. Deal or not, he wasn't going to do anything to Jonah. There was more than enough mischief in him, however, to allow Jonah to continue thinking otherwise.

A blue portal opened in the air above him, and Danny smiled. Right on time. Clockwork must be feeling better. He flew through, blinking in the relative dimness of Long Now. Did he smell popcorn?

"I was wondering," said Clockwork, voice returned to its normal calm, "if you would like to join me in watching some of the highlights of your most recent adventure. I believe you missed some of the more amusing reactions."

Danny nodded, then held out the book. "What should I do with this?"

Clockwork held out his hand, and Danny gave it over. Danny blinked, and the book was replaced by a bowl of popcorn.

Clockwork gestured with his staff, indicating a couch set up in front of one of his viewing lenses. "Shall we?"


	19. Chapter 19

**Hey! This is a sequel to chapter 17!**

 **17: Something like that will come up eventually, but I haven't** **figured out how I want it to go, yet.**

 **Anne Camp: That's why I put it in :)**

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Out There 2

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Danny felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned from his self-assigned task of throwing small stones downhill. Considering the low-gravity nature of his current location, the activity was much more interesting than it sounded. Danny couldn't get over the elongated parabolic arcs, the slow falls, the lack of wind resistance.

The hand belonged to Clockwork, the only other person up here. 'Here' being the Moon. The Moon. Danny still couldn't believe that. Well, he could, but he couldn't.

Danny bounced (quite a bit higher than he had intended), and hugged Clockwork tightly. He hoped the hug conveyed his sense of gratitude and excitement, because he couldn't speak or hear in the vacuum of space.

Clockwork patted him on the back, then gently tugged him away. Danny obediently floated back, and Clockwork pressed a small piece of machined metal into his hands. Danny stared down at it in curiosity and wonder. It had clearly broken off of something larger, and it had a fragment of a logo on it, but Danny couldn't tell what it was from.

Clockwork put a hand under Danny's chin, and lifted it up. A souvenir, he mouthed, from the future.

Danny grinned and nodded, excited all over again. Clockwork patted him again, this time on the head, then took his hand and pulled. A portal opened up in front of them, and, on the other side, Danny was buffeted by a curiously weak but fast wind. It whistled weakly in his ears and kicked up red dust.

"Mars," said Clockwork. His voice was quiet, barely audible over the wind, but had the timbre of a shout.

Danny inhaled sharply in surprise, and immediately regretted it. Despite having no need to breathe in ghost form, most of the associated reflexes were intact. Such as, for example, coughing upon breathing in a large amount of dust.

By the time he'd stopped, the dust storm (the Martian dust storm) had subsided, and he was able to look out over an absolutely breathtaking (ha ha) Martian vista.

Well, to be perfectly honest, the view wasn't exactly breathtaking on it's own. It consisted mostly of rocky, red-brown hills that, on Earth, would probably be considered boring. But they weren't on Earth. They were on Mars. The color of the sky, the closeness of the horizon, the storm receeding in the distance, all conspired to give the view a thrillingly alien feel.

Maybe it shouldn't have, maybe Danny's adventures in the arguably more alien Ghost Zone should have jaded him, but this was such a dream. This was his dream. If he wasn't floating literally, he would have been floating figuratively. He was- he giggled- over the Moon.

A figure stood in the middle distance. No, two figures. Clockwork flew towards them, and Danny followed closely.

"It's Lady Nephthys," said Danny, shouting to be heard, "and who else?"

"You don't need to yell quite that loudly," said Clockwork, clearly amused. "You'll wear yourself out. It is Nocturn. He has a role in this as well."

"Nocturne?" yelped Danny. He had only encountered Nocturne the one time, and they had fought. "Why?"

"You'll see." Clockwork's tone wasn't as deliberately mysterious as usual. It lost something in the shouting cadence. "He is one of the Ancient Masters, much as I, Nephthys, or Pandora. He felt the need to test you. He is typically much more relaxed."

"That was a test?"

"Of course. Didn't it strike you as odd, how he needed machines to keep people asleep? Or how you were able to wake up? You aren't anything like a lucid dreamer."

"Well, yeah. But everyone is always doing their own laws of physics, and weaknesses, and Obsessions, and stuff, so I thought, as long as it's internally consistent..."

"That's reasonable," said Clockwork. "That was his goal, after all."

Danny, feeling aprehensive regardless, drew closer to Clockwork. Not that he thought Clockwork was leading him into a fight. He wouldn't do that. Without a good reason.

But still- Mars. He was finding it difficult to focus on anything else, even the mysterious thing that Lady Nephthys wanted him for. Speaking of which-

"Why does Lady Nephthys want me?" he asked. "I know you said she didn't say, but that doesn't mean that you don't know. And why are they here? Not that I'm complaining, but there aren't any people here, except for us. No death. No dreams. Unless- Are there aliens?"

"Not unless you count the four of us."

Danny gasped, thin air bitter on his tongue. "Oh my gosh! You're right! I'm an alien! We're aliens! This is so cool!"

Clockwork patted him on the head again, ruffling his hair. He was doing that quite often today, and Danny was fairly certain he would be annoyed if it was anyone else.

"For your other questions, well, the secrets of death are among the few things that time cannot reveal."

Danny bumped into Clockwork affectionately. "You're such a nerd," he said, knowing full well that he fell into the same category. Impulsively, he hugged Clockwork. "I love you," he said inaudibly, voice muffled by the thin atmosphere and Clockwork's cloak. He pulled away.

Judging by the way Clockwork smiled at him, he had heard what Danny said regardless. Danny stuck his tongue out. Clockwork chuckled.

"Nephthys will be unhappy with me if I tell you," said Clockwork. "She wants it to be a surprise."

"Okay," said Danny, who was already starting to be distracted by the scenery again. This was so cool.

... It also looked... oddly familiar? Like he had seen it before. Which was impossible, unless... His eyes landed on a shape near Nephthys and Nocturne's feet.

"Grandfather?" asked Danny. "Is this Chryse Planitia? Is this-? Is that that Pathfinder? Sojourner? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh." He made a sound that somehow combined both ghostly and human excitement.

He flitted forward, examining the shape. It was mostly covered by dirt- by the Martian soil- but enough was visible for it to be easily identified as manmade.

"Pathfinder!" he squealed, nearly vibrating out of his skin.

Nephthys frowned. "You told him!" she accused Clockwork. Her robes were short and cream-colored and embroidered with butterflies today, a touch more practical than how Danny usually saw them, and stained red up to her knees. As usual, she wore a veil over her curly black hair.

"I did not," said Clockwork.

"Then how does he know?"

"He really likes space," protested Clockwork.

"He dreams about space," said Nocturne, yawning. The ghost, who was, apparently, the Ancient Master of Dreams, looked much different than he had when Danny last saw him. Yes, he still wore the night-cut robes, yes, he still had the horns, yes, he still had the mask. But the mask was clearly that, a mask, where before Danny had taken it for his face. Considering how ghosts worked, it might have been his face back then, but it wasn't today. Also, it was askew. And he was holding a pillow. And he was a good deal smaller, human-sized.

Danny wasn't really paying attention to this, however.

"Oh my gosh, I was on the Moon, and now I'm on Mars, and I'm in space, and I'm with Pathfinder, and the sun-!" he squinted up intently at the Martian sky for several seconds. "The sun is going down. Can we stay long enough for it to set? A Martian sunset! This is so cool. Do you think Phobos or Demos will be up? Will we be able to see Earth? Oh my gosh, I can't believe it! And we're with Pathfinder! What about Sojourner? Is Sojourner around? Is it buried?" He took a deep, shuddering, and entirely useless breath. "Best day ever!" he shouted, and threw himself at Clockwork.

"It isn't over yet," said Nephthys. She sounded a little put out, so Danny turned.

"Sorry," he said, trying to be attentive. "Clockwork said you wanted me for something?"

"Yes," said Nephthys, less ruffled. "We're here to witness a transformation." She lifted her chin, and gestured to the ground. "This is Pathfinder." She waved behind her, at a shape a few meters away. "That is Sojourner." Danny nodded eagerly. "It was the first Mars rover."

"Well," said Danny, "there were those Russian ones..."

"Didn't work, don't count. Sojourner was the first to do any roving."

Danny nodded, not quite understanding where this was going.

"It captured human imagination," continued Nephthys.

"It spawned dreams," said Nocturne. "It was a dream, made real."

"Then, the names. They don't have the same power, the same meaning, they might in the Realms, but our worlds are connected. A pathfinder is one who paves the way for those to come, and so others have come, and will come," said Nephthys. "Sojourner nearly shares a name with an Ancient lost many hundreds of years ago. The deeds match, or at least fit."

"The timing isn't the most fortuitous," said Clockwork. "But you can't rush these things."

Danny looked around at the larger, older ghosts, wide eyed. "Do you mean..?"

"There's more than one way to make a ghost," said Nephthys.

"But, that- But they weren'treally alive- Could Pathfinder- or Sojourner- think?"

"No. They were, still are, and still will be, machines, albeit broken ones. They were never alive."

"Then why-" Danny rethought his question. "Then they couldn't die, could they?"

Nephthys grinned. "I'm in ccharge of mote than death. It would be better to call me the Master of Change. We're here to watch an idea coalesce more than anything else." She paused. "Whoever comes to be, they'll be Neverborn."

Danny nodded. "So, here?" he asked. "Or there?" he pointed towards Sojourner.

"We were hoping you could tell us," said Nephthys. "It's why I asked you here today. You see, sometimes ideas need a little bit of help, and you are the one most affected by this." Nephthys paused. "That we can bring up here and know personally. And like."

"Oh," said Danny. He looked back and forth between Sojourner and Pathfinder. Wow. This was important, and in a lot of different ways. It was kind of like helping someone be born. Not that Danny had ever done that. The closest he had ever gotten to that was with Danielle (if you squinted really hard) and with one excessively pregnant woman he had flown to the hospital (not North Mercy, the other one).

On the other hand, it wasn't at all like helping someone be born, because the person here already existed, and had for a while, just as different pieces. That is if he understood how the Neverborn worked properly.

"Over there," said Danny, finally, pointing at Sojourner. He flew forward, skimming along the dusty ground, avoiding several larger stones.

He hovered over the little robot, taking it in, examining its flat, dust-coated top and buried wheels. The Ancients gathered around in a loose circle, and Danny drifted to the ground, crossing his legs as he settled, and brushed away a couple of sharp stones.

There was definitely more of a _feeling_ here. A kind of energy, maybe, but a weird kind of energy. Not ectoplasm. Not electricity. Not emotional energy. The Ancients would have noticed that themselves. It was just a sort of expectation, of excitement. Something that pulled on him and drew in his attention.

Then something changed. There was ectoplasm flowing in, towards Sojourner. Power. Sparks, vividly green against the Martian red, lept through the air.

"There we go," said Nephthys. "It's starting now."

The world tinged green, and the Ghost Zone felt unusually close. Another spark flickered into being, and light briefly limned the surface of Sojourner, before flowing off into the air and coalescing into something about the size of a fist.

It resembled a will-o-the-wisp for a few seconds, but then it deformed, growing out, taking new shapes.

At the end, the final shape the ghost took reminded him just a little bit of Skulker, in that they were robotic in appearance. But that, and the ectoplasm-green eyes, was the only similarity. This ghost was smaller, shaped more or less like a young girl, with metalic grey skin, hiking clothes, and a solar panel backpack. She had rust-red freckles painted liberally over her features.

She seemed first surprised at her newfound body and freedom of movement, then pleased. Then she noticed the Ancients, and stared around at them suspiciously until her eyes landed on Danny. Her gaze intensified.

"Hi," said Danny, awkwardly raising his hand to greet the smaller, younger, ghost.

The ghost snapped out an arm, pointing away and behind her. "Betcha I can get to the top of that hill before you!"

Danny blinked, surprised. Then his eyes narrowed and he grinned. "You're on!"

.

.

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"Do you think we should stop them?" asked Nephthys. The two young ghosts had been racing back and forth across the landscape in an effort to be the first to 'explore' various things. "We haven't actually _explained_ anything to her yet, and we need to bring her back to the Realms."

"No, no," said Clockwork, "let them have their fun. They'll wear themselves out before too long."


	20. Chapter 20

**Hello! It's been a while, hasn't it? This is a gift for qlinq-qhost on Tumblr. I hope it has enough angst! :)**

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They Don't Know

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Danny wasn't sure what would run out first, the things he had to throw, or his ability to throw them. Ectoplasm had soaked through his makeshift bandages and sparkled and shimmered in the light cast by the ghost shield imprisoning him.

The worst part of this was, technically speaking, he could escape the ghost shield whenever he wanted. All he had to do was turn human and walk out. But he couldn't. His parents had installed new security cameras in the lab earlier this month. They would review the footage as soon as they found out he had escaped, and then they'd know. They'd know he was half-ghost.

Danny couldn't let them know. He had to admit, he was too scared to let them know. What did that say about him, that he would rather be cut up than reveal himself to his parents? What did it say about his parents, that that was even a risk?

Well, it said his parents were ghost hunters who thought ghosts were unfeeling evil monsters and wanted to dissect one for science. That wasn't exactly news to Danny, however, just like being half-ghost wasn't news to him.

In any case, Danny had been reduced to throwing random objects at the control panel for the shield in the hope that one of the objects would hit the lever that turned the shield off. He was lucky he could access things he had been carrying in human form without transforming completely, otherwise he wouldn't have those objects. Unluckily, his aim was steadily worsening as ectoplasm leaked from his side.

Thus far, Danny had thrown both of his sneakers, his math textbook, his lunchbox, and a rock at the panel, all without luck. He eased his English textbook out of his backpack, and hefted it with one hand, testing both the weight and the weakness in his muscles.

Silently, he promised Mr Lancer that, if this worked, he would never slack on English homework again. He threw the book. It sailed through the air, hit the panel, and-

-did nothing.

Danny sighed, and looked into his backpack. He was running out of things to throw. Should he throw his history textbook next? See if time could fly?

Of course, he already knew that time did fly. He saw Clockwork do it all the time. He laughed, then hissed. Had he lost enough ectoplasm to start getting silly? Apparently.

He pulled out the history book, and threw it at the control panel. It tumbled sloppily end over end. His heart dropped as he watched it. That was a terrible throw. He hadn't even aimed properly.

But it hit the panel, and the lever snapped down.

Danny blinked in the sudden darkness, and struggled to his feet. He didn't try to pick up his backpack. His parents would just assume he had been careless, and that he'd left his backpack in the containment area for Phantom to find. Somehow. He'd probably get in trouble for it.

He stumbled to the portal, and jammed his thumb against the DNA reader. Somehow, he still had enough of his human DNA as a ghost to operate it. The doors slid open, agonizingly slow, bathing the lab in green light once again.

Behind him, the door at the top of the stair opened, casting the lab in warmer, more natural light. Oh, no. He pressed himself into the too-small gap, trying to get through, even as he heard feet- two pairs of them- thundering down the stairs.

His hip slid on his own ectoplasm, and he slipped through, into the Ghost Zone and relative safety. He tumbled head over heels, struggling to orient himself in the void and fly under his own power.

By the time he managed it, he was dizzy and retching. If he had managed to eat anything that day, he would have lost it. Globules of ectoplasm drifted away from his wound. His bandage job had come loose. He pushed down on it. It squished wetly.

He needed help, and fast.

Clockwork. Clockwork could help him. Clockwork _would_ help him. Clockwork always helped him.

He shook his head to clear away the rapidly gathering cobwebs in his brain. Heh. Cobwebs. Like in a haunted house. A haunted _head._ His head was haunted. Better not tell Mom and Dad. They might blow it off.

 _Stop_ it. Don't think about that. (Don't lose your head.)

Which way was Long Now?

 _That_ way. He fell towards it, flickering into humanity, the better to avoid obstacles. Like that island he just phased through. Blood mixed with his shed ectoplasm, making a thick, sticky mixture.

Time stretched and compressed. He drifted, never quite losing consciousness, but not holding onto it as firmly as he ought to have. Brass gears flashed in his vision like stars. He was getting close. He was here. He was now. Long Now.

The ground in front of the big front doors of Clockwork's lair were hard stone, etched with strange hatch mark symbols. Like everything in Long Now, they were about time. About time Danny got here. He touched down, and nearly collapsed, his leg giving out underneath him. It was a good thing he could fly.

He drifted to the doors. They did not open. Why didn't they open? Had he done something wrong? Was Clockwork mad at him? He pressed one sticky hand to the door.

Something was wrong. Clockwork wouldn't abandon him, but he would protect him in a weird inconvenient way, _like not opening the door._ So Danny had better take this as a message. He had better hide.

Hide where?

How about that large gear that hadn't been there last time he had come around? The one stuck vertically into the ground and bigger around than he was tall. The one that looked like it could provide a lot of cover. He dropped behind it, sliding down to the ground, and making himself small.

The doors creaked open. Squealed, really. They only made that kind of noise when they were opening for someone Clockwork really didn't like.

Such as the Observants. Oh. That was a good idea, not letting him in while they were there. Meeting them like this could have been nasty. Normally, he would have peered out, around the gear, but he couldn't move anymore. He shuddered. Clockwork had better get here soon. He really needed help. He was going to bleed out.

"Oh, Daniel."

Danny pried his eyes open. When had he shut them? Clockwork's face hung blurry in front of his. He tried to reach out, but found his arms too heavy to move. Clockwork gathered him up, into his arms. Danny moaned, and settled his head against Clockwork's neck.

Time blurred. They were inside. Clockwork was talking to Danny, but he didn't understand the words. He just wanted to lean up against Clockwork, he wanted hugs. Clockwork wouldn't give him hugs, though. He kept poking him in the stomach. It hurt.

He went to sleep.

His eyes snapped open. He saw green and felt something wrapped around him. Was he still in the lab? No, no, no. No! He clawed at whatever binding him, desperate to be free.

"Daniel," said Clockwork. "Daniel. Stop. Breathe. Breathe, Daniel."

Danny let out a high-pitched whine, but stopped moving, and followed the direction. He hurt everywhere, but especially in his side.

"You're safe, Daniel," said Clockwork. "You're alright."

Slowly, Danny's breathing began to even out. He leaned into Clockwork, curling up against him.

"They didn't do anything," said Danny, even though Clockwork must already know. "It wasn't them. It was Skulker and Technus. They're trying out a team-up. All they did, all they did was catch me, after. They didn't hurt me. They didn't do anything to me. They just caught me. I got away."

Clockwork held him, not commenting.

"They _wouldn't_ have done anything, right?" asked Danny. He instantly regretted asking the question. He had prevented himself from doing it so far, not wanting to know the answer. "If they knew it was me? If I showed them?"

Every second it took Clockwork to answer settled in Danny's stomach like molten lead. "If," said Clockwork, "they knew it was you, they would not have hurt you, intentionally."

"Oh," said Danny. "Would they- If I had shown them, would they have known?"

"Perhaps."

Well. It wasn't the answer he wanted, but it was the one he had been expecting. He sniffed, and shifted to hold his side. It hurt. It hurt a lot.

His parents were supposed to _protect_ him, to help him when he got hurt, not throw him in a cage. They were supposed to do what Clockwork was doing for him now, actually, if he thought about it.

"Daniel," said Clockwork. "You do not have to go back."

"What?"

"You do not have to go back, if you do not want to," said Clockwork. "You can stay here."

He adjusted his grip on Danny subtly, so that Danny had a way out. Danny didn't want out. He wanted to stop hurting. But he shifted and looked up into Clockwork's eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if you want to, you can stay. You can live here, with me."

"But the Observants..."

"They cannot dictate who I have in my own lair. Besides, they gave me responsibility for you. They will complain, of course, but then, they always do." He brushed Danny's hair back, out of his face. "Long Now is large enough that you need never see them, in any case."

Danny looked away. "I can't," he said. "Thank you, but I can't. I'm sorry." Who would protect Amity Park, if he left? What would happen to his friends? What would it do to his parents?

He loved them. He just wished they didn't terrify him so much.

"That's alright," said Clockwork, aging into an old man. His beard tickled Danny's ear. "Are you hungry?"

"No," said Danny. "It hurts."

"It is a deep wound," said Clockwork. "You lost a lot of blood. But I have treated it as much as we can. Now, all we can do is wait." He sighed. "You will not have to wait long."

Danny nodded, and leaned against Clockwork's chest again, the glass door over Clockwork's clock was hard and flat against his shoulder. The ticking echoed through his body.

"Thank you," said Danny.

"I am only doing what anyone should," said Clockwork, "when a hurt child comes to them."

"They didn't know," insisted Danny.

"I know," said Clockwork.


	21. Chapter 21

**Hello! It is my thought for this one that it happens before Celebration (Chapter 13), and after Kindred Spirits. Also after Tiny, I think.**

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Play On

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Few ghosts ever went to Elmerton.

It was just across the river from Amity Park, and reality was thin there, too, so of course _some_ ghosts still wound up there, but not as many as one would expect. There were several reasons for this. Ease of access, resources, Phantom's presence and abilty to catch most ghosts before they got out of Amity Park, more interesting places elsewhere, etcetera, etcetera.

But at this moment, that didn't matter. There was a ghost there, now, menacing the populace. The populace here, being much less used to ghosts, was easier to menace, even for a ghost as weak as this.

"Beware!" shouted the ghost waggling his blue fingers.

The girl in the alley sighed, looking out at the scene. She had come here to stock up for her world tour somewhere her cousin wouldn't find her. Even a newborn like her knew she needed supplies, though that was, in part, thanks to borrowed memories.

She sighed again. The Box Ghost was mostly harmless. But. Emphasis on _mostly._ She was too much like her cousin.

With a twist of thought and a flash of light, she stopped being a human girl, and started to be a ghost. She flew up out of the alley.

"Hey, Boxy!" she shouted, charging an ectoblast.

Another ectoblast, not hers, knocked the ghost out of the sky, and was quickly followed up by the blue-white capture beam of a Fenton Thermos. The girl cringed. Heck.

It was her cousin.

"Dani!" he exclaimed, flitting around her in a manner that put her in mind of a large, anxious hummingbird. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. It was only the Box Ghost."

"I know. Just, you know." He hugged her. She could feel her core stabilize slightly, and started to pick up his emotions. "I missed you so much. I looked all over for you."

She hugged him back. She had missed him, too, but-

"You know why I left." Her core swirled with emotions and feelings she could not quite verbalize.

"You want to be your own person, I get it." He pulled back slightly so that he could smile down at her. "You know, if you ever wanted me to... I would. You're family."

"Yeah, just... I'm not ready for that." She didn't think Danny was ready for what she was offering, either. Not that he wouldn't do it in a moment, for her, but... She didn't want to make him.

Danny nodded. "It's just that I'm worried about you being on your own, with no backup." He brightened. "That's why I want you to meet someone!"

Dani frowned. "Who?"

"A friend of mine."

Not Jazz, then. But she'd already met Sam and Tucker, and she didn't think Danny had any other friends.

That was kind of sad, actually...

Maybe it was someone she didn't remember. She didn't have all of Danny's memories, after all. Just a whole lot of them.

"Okay, okay, fine, sure."

Danny beamed. "Great!" He took her hand and pulled her back towards Amity Park.

They didn't talk much after that, content with sharing nebulous emotions, until they started to near Fentonworks.

"Hey, this friend isn't, like, your parents or something, are they?"

"What? No. I mean, if you do want to meet them-"

"No," said Dani, hastily. "I'm good."

"They are your parents, too."

"Don't want to deal with it. But I would like to know where we're going."

"Oh, yeah, I guess this would look weird. My friend, he lives in the Ghost Zone."

Dani frowned. "Poindexter?"

Danny giggled. "No, but I could introduce you to him, too, if you want."

"No, I'm good."

They entered Fentonworks through Danny's bedroom window, and crept down through the house to the lab. Danny opened the portal doors, and they were in the Ghost Zone.

Dani had been there before, with Vlad, but not for long, and not often. Most of her memories of the place were Danny's. Traveling through it like this, going deep and navigating through odd little wrinkles of spacetime, was so much better.

Right up until she caught sight of their destination.

Long Now.

She stopped.

"What's wrong?" asked Danny. "Are you okay? Are you- Is it okay that you flew all the way here?"

"I'm fine," said Dani. "I'm just... surprised."

Danny grinned. "It's great, isn't it?"

"Sure," said Dani.

Dani had memories of Clockwork, but they were difficult for her. They were all tangled up and cofused with memories Danny had gotten from that other guy, and they hurt.

Beyond that...

Dani knew Danny trusted Clockwork. She didn't. For a lot of reasons.

She should probably turn back. Putting herself further under the power of some creepy time dude was not on her to-do list.

On the other hand, bailing would definitely upset Danny, and what better chance would she get to confront the guy? If he was as shady as she suspected, she didn't want Danny anywhere near him.

She followed Danny.

They flew down to hover in front of the huge double doors, which opened inward, completely silently. Danny gave her a delighted grin, and flew in.

She sighed, and followed. Shouldn't Danny be the more world-weary and wary one? Dani had just been born earlier this year, after all. But, no, Danny was the one trusting the eldritch time monster. If the two of them weren't pretty eldritch themselves, Dani would be even more concerned.

The inside of the building was just as creepy as the outside. Less than a second in, and the ticking was already driving her crazy. It was just so excessive, and the architecture was off, even for the Ghost Zone. Were all the gears really necessary?

"Clockwork!" exclaimed Danny, far too happily. He dive-bombed the purple-cloaked ghost floating at the other end of the room.

Dani hung back and watched. Danny twined around Clockwork, his tail twisted tightly around the corner of Clockwork's cloak. Clockwork smiled down at Danny indulgently, with exactly the same expression Vlad reserved for Maddie the cat.

It made Dani feel sick. She crossed her arms over her chest, and swallowed hard.

... No. This wasn't the right stance. She'd never beat Clockwork in a fight, after all. She would melt long before she could even leave a mark on him. No. To beat him, she'd need to be sneaky, figure out what he wanted, and use that. Like Vlad had taught her. Gross.

She relaxed her arms, and hunched her shoulders, trying to appear shy, rather than repulsed, when Clockwork patted Danny on the head.

Danny extracted himself, and flew back to Dani. "Dani, this is Clockwork," he said, putting one hand on her shoulder. "Clockwork, this is Dani. Dani, I don't know if you know this already, but Clockwork's helped me out of a few really bad situations, and he lets me hang out here, sometimes. Also, he gives me history lessons, but that's more of a drawback, you know," Danny finished, jokingly.

"As it is for Daniel," said Clockwork, smoothly, his voice deep and rich, "you are welcome here, whenever you should wish to come."

"Thanks," said Dani, stiffly. It would be natural to be a little reserved at a first meeting, anyway, right? Maybe she should have worked harder at her interpersonal skills, after all.

"Hey," said Danny, voice pitched low and encouraging, "you don't have to be shy. Clockwork is really cool."

Dani wrinkled her nose. She wasn't being shy. She was being cautious.

If she was remembering right, people usually asked questions about each other after they were introduced for the first time. She licked her lower lip. "So, he just lets you hang out here? Just like that?"

Danny glanced at Clockwork, and Dani got the impression that Danny thought she was being rude, somehow. "Well, I help him with some stuff, I guess, but," he rubbed the back of his neck, "I feel like we, um, enjoy each others' company?"

Chores. Right. Like what Vlad made her do. Like 'go get Daniel's mid-morph DNA.' Jeez, Clockwork even used their full names like Vlad did. The parallels were never ending.

"I do indeed." Clockwork smiled faintly, revealing a slight gap between his two front teeth. He turned his gaze to Dani, the smile fading to be replaced with a much more neutral expression. "You don't approve."

"What?" said Danny, looking back and forth between the two of them. "What do you mean? Don't approve of what?"

Clockwork raised an eyebrow. Crud. He already knew.

She should have known better than to try to out-sneak someone who was like Vlad, but could also control time. In retrospect, that was pretty stupid.

"He's using you," said Dani, floating closer to Danny, putting herself slightly between him and Clockwork.

"I- What?"

"He's _using_ you. He 'helped' you, but didn't he cause the whole thing in the first place?" Even if her borrowed memories of the incidents weren't clear, she had definitely gotten that impression. "And now he's making you do stuff?" She glared at Clockwork. "You're just like Vlad!" Ectoplasm shimmered and cracked around her hands.

"Dani," said Danny, "I don't..." He glanced at Clockwork. "He really helped me. The situation is kind of complicated."

She glared up at Danny. "Do you even see how you're acting around him? It's like mind control or something!"

Danny furrowed his eyebrows and sucked in his lips. "That's _not_ what's going on. It's... Hng... Oh my gosh, this is sort of embarrassing, actually."

"Are you blushing?"

" _... Maybe._ "

This had really gone too far.

"Clockwork, I'm sorry, I think, um, I think I should talk to Dani for a bit, probably should have talked to her before, sorry." Danny tugged her back, away from Clockwork.

"Take your time," murmured Clockwork.

Self-satisfied _jerk..._

Danny pulled her into a corner, and turned her around. "Dani," he said, "Clockwork isn't mind controlling me, and what happened with-" he visibly paled, "-with Dan, it wasn't his fault. It probably would have been worse if he didn't do anything."

"Okay, then explain," demanded Dani, glancing back to where Clockwork floated.

"I will, I will, calm down, please. Clockwork is... He's got a contract with the Observants."

"And the Observants are?"

"One-eyed jerks. They've got a thing against half-ghosts. But the contract, it's basically, well," he lowered his voice again, "slavery. But magic. He doesn't have a choice but to do what they want. He managed to find a loophole for me. For us, really. But... Yeah."

"Fine. And the other thing?"

"Uhm." Danny fidgeted. "It's a thing that ghosts our age do sometimes, I guess? When we get attached to, you know, an adult ghost. I asked Dora about it, and it is a real thing. Not... Not everyone is like Vlad, Dani. I know he lied, but some people can do and say the same things and have them be the truth."

"It isn't about that." But was it? Was she really that hung up on Vlad?

"Okay," said Danny, raising his hands. "You don't have to stay here, or come here, if you don't want. I just thought that it might be a good thing if you had somewhere safe to go when you need help."

... And now Dani felt bad. Danny was trying to help her, and she was being ungrateful.

That didn't mean she was _wrong_ about Clockwork.

"I'm not asking you to immediately be best friends with Clockwork, but maybe give him a chance? We've got to make a lot of snap decisions in our lives, but this doesn't have to be one of them."

Dani pursed her lips.

"Fine," she said.


End file.
